A Paper Alliance
by Staraxia
Summary: After six years of isolated training in Uzushio, Hashirama Senju returns, a tired man in the facade of leader. Ironically, the person who restores his hopes for peace was his clan's most dreaded enemy. Founders' Era AU, fem Madara
1. Prologue, Part I

**Prologue, Part I:** Last Conversations

Rewritten as of 11/23/16

* * *

Tranquil moonlight poured across the land and the ocean waves lapped gently on the shoreline. Uzushio was beautiful, and he could see it, shining like a beacon across a distance he could never breach.

Hashirama lay on the grassy hill that overlooked the Uzushio settlement, his arms crossed behind his head and his eyes staring blankly out to sea. In the distance, several Uzumaki clan members rushed about to set up the transport seal that would send him back home, with the Senju.

It was a strange, almost fantastical notion. Days spent with his real family were far in the past and the times with his new one recent and fresh. At first, he had been uncertain as to why his father sent him here; there was no one in Uzushio who could help him with his mokuton, but now he knew. Uzushio was leisurely and calm, almost as an unspoken rule. Though Hashirama was mostly left alone to practice his talents, his "training" sessions always left him feeling easy and satisfied. Therapeutic, even. It was a drastic contrast from the air of urgency that pervaded his father's lessons in the Senju compound.

For six years, he had thrived in this moonlight, in this cool ocean air, and he was intoxicated. He had gotten a taste of peace, and now he wanted it all. He wanted to take that peace and pack it with his belongings, to take it back to his bloody home and cram through his father's frozen heart.

He didn't want to go. The brutality of war did not faze him, but fear lay thick in his reluctance to return. A seamless fear that gnawed at his conscious and grappled with his mind, even as he tried his best to turn it away.

He wasn't sure he wanted to identify its source.

Images rushed through his head one after the other, a different picture for each different scenario, swirling together until he could hardly distinguish one from the other. At last, he abandoned the unproductive activity, biting back a scream of frustration. His only apparent reaction was a heavy sigh.

"A ryo for your thoughts." That lilting voice that he had come to know so well.

"Mito," he acknowledged. "What brings you out so late?"

She laughed softly, the sound reminiscent of chimes in the night. He had hated it when he first came, envied it for being a reminder of happier, more innocent times. Now, Mito was not quite a friend. On the days when his ghosts left him alone, they would joke and laugh together, but otherwise he weathered the storm on his own.

Sometimes he almost hated her in his jealousy. Mito, who had lived on this peaceful little island her entire life, knew nothing of the dying clansmen that filled his memories, or of the times when he woke screaming from nightmares of his brothers' deaths. "Stay with me a while," he would ask sometimes, and she would, but she could only sit and hold his hand in silence.

But this time she spoke. "I came to see you, of course." She sat down in the grass beside him, carefully adjusting the layers of her kimono, before she continued, "We've known each other for six years and counting now. Surely I wouldn't let you leave without saying goodbye?"

On the retrospect, he should have expected this. Hashirama smiled, a little too somberly for his own liking. As soon as the Uzumaki masters finished preparing the seal, he would be gone, perhaps forever, and someone as sentimental as Mito was not used to farewells. He supposed that this once, he could humor her.

All faults could be overlooked now that they were parting.

"Certainly," Hashirama replied. The smile on his face remained, but he gentled it for her sake. "You are my friend, after all."

A comfortable silence passed. The forlorn wind swept through his hair. He heard the gentle rustle of fabric as Mito shifted her posture, her hair decorations tinkling with her movements.

"Well isn't this nostalgic," Mito chuckled. Her warm brown eyes shimmered with a foreign light and Hashirama suddenly found it harder to meet her gaze. When he had first come to Uzushio, he had met her on this hilltop overlooking the city, his soul overwhelmed with the prospect of being able to stay _here,_ in this little island paradise. _But I forgot that I was merely a visitor._

"It was good to be here for a while," he said instead, hiding his discomfort.

"And I'm glad you were. You still are," she pointed out. Hashirama turned towards her curiously at the statement. "You're still here right now," she clarified at his puzzled stare, "we may as well make the most of it instead of lamenting about your imminent departure."

Hashirama smiled. "Alright," he said, sitting up and turning to face her. "What do you want to do?"

"Nothing drastic. Let's just talk for a while."

"If you want."

"There is something I would like to know," Mito said, looking at him calmly, "but I understand if it is a rather tender subject for you. If that's the case, please tell me to stop."

He frowned internally. In all the six years they have known each other, Mito had always been forward with him. Even her silences were brief when they did occur.

"You know you can talk to me about anything."

Mito smiled, though it seemed to be slightly forced. Hashirama raised an eyebrow at her rather stiff behavior.

"Is there a problem within the clan?" he lowered his voice as he asked. Even the Uzumaki, isolated as they were, had their enemies, though there had been no battles on the island. The mainland countries were apathetic at best and hostile at worst towards the small settlement on Uzushio island. Throughout his entire stay, even he had never been privy to the clan's tense strategic meetings, though Mito seemed to sit in occasionally.

But Mito simply shook her head. "No," she said, "if anything, this question will bother you more than it does me." But from her tone of voice it was clear that she was very serious. Hashirama stayed silent this time, but his discomfort remained.

Mito seemed to notice his silent unease. "Don't worry about it," she said lightly, "This has nothing to do with internal clan affairs. Only my own curiosity. If Uzushio was in any sort of danger, I assure you I would be a lot more panicked than this."

Hashirama's tense shoulder relaxed somewhat, and he shifted to a more comfortable position on the ground. "Well, let's hear it then."

"Do you miss your family, Hashirama?"

He froze. All his prior fears came crawling back inside with a vengeance. "I certainly do miss them, " he said slowly, "it's just…" _How much will be different once I get back? How much will be the same? Will my brothers still smile at me and love me as they used to?_

 _...Will they even all still be alive?_

Mito's lips thinned at his silence, and her eyes were dark and sad. "I'm sorry," she said, simply because there was nothing else to say.

He took a deep breath; let it out. "It's okay," he said at last, "you couldn't have known. Your father and everyone else all love you so much. I would not want anyone else to understand my family's dysfunctional relations," he finished trying to lighten the situation, but not quite succeeding, partially because of the lie. He _would_ like someone to know, someone to understand, but in all likelihood, no one ever would. His smile was a little too bitter for his liking.

Mito seemed about to say something, but then she subsided. "Let me tell you a story," she suggested instead.

"What is it?"

"Not very long ago," Mito began, "a little girl was born on this island to a prestigious family. Her father, mother, and extended family all loved her immensely, but she was still alone. Isolated. Her father was an important man, often away for meetings and discussions, and her mother was not exactly the nurturing type. She was often away from home, seeking out the toads in the woods the way she used to, and her daughter would not see her until she came home late at night. But she didn't mind because her mother would tell her wonderful tales of the summoning world."

"However, despite this limited companionship, I was still lonely. So, when I was still very young, my father took me to the cliff side, overlooking the sea. 'Look Mito,' he said, 'do you see those whirlpools out in the deep? Those are the safeguards of our village. They are what maintain our peace, our isolation. Each one spins at its own pace, in its own trajectory, relying on nothing and no one but the power of nature. You, my dear girl, must learn from them, so you too may grow strong someday.' But he was wrong."

"How so?" he asked.

"Allow me to finish, then I believe you will understand," Mito's voice was placid and cool, rhythmic like the waves. "Every day, I would play unhindered in the forests of the island, chasing frogs and climbing trees, but every day without fail, I would go to that cliffside and watch the whirlpools, trying to comprehend my father's words. I wanted to know, to understand his secrets. He was the leader of Uzushio, surely he knew the right way to make me strong."

"One day, as I was climbing off the cliffs after sundown, I saw a small ship in the harbor. The ship was unfamiliar, so naturally I went inspect it, and on the way I ran into a boy I'd never seen before. He had a letter in hand, a headband around his head, and a haircut that looked absolutely ridiculous, but...there was something else. Something different about him. Somehow, his very presence exuded life, breathed it. And that is how I knew my father was wrong."

He wanted to say something then, but Mito held up her hand.

"Listen," she said, utterly unperturbed. "I gave the strange boy a hand and helped him find the Uzumaki compound, and then was blindsided when I was told that the boy was the Senju heir. Apparently, he was sent over by his father to train with us for as long as deemed necessary. I wasn't the only person with doubts, but he soon proved himself beyond the highest expectations. He was a sensation in the village," Mito recalled, a fond smile on her face, "but he was still humble, still approachable. And every day I grew more certain."

"This," Mito said, gesturing between the two of them, "this is true strength. My father was wrong. Someone's strength is not manifested just by being alone. Your kindness, your willingness to try and understand everyone around you taught me that, if nothing else. All the time you were here, you trained alone and lived on your own, but still you made me happy. You made everyone around you happy. So thank you for that, Hashirama."

A flare of color burst into the sky.

"The seal is ready," Mito observed. She rose and dusted off her kimono. "Well," she asked, "are you ready to leave?"

Hashirama stood up, and with his heart heavy with gratitude he gave Mito a deep, formal bow. "Thank you for telling me all that," he said, his voice slightly choked, "You have no idea how much I needed that."

Her smile was wan but genuine. "You are very welcome," she said, and they walked to the transport seal in silence.

The seal was a magnificent construction, a ten-meter circle filled with intricate designs and characters. Hashirama recognized a few from his tutelage under the seal masters of Uzushio, but the overall array was too complex to analyze in the short amount of time he had. He recognized several of the seal masters who stood about the array, including the Uzumaki leader himself, all waiting to see him off. Mito went to stand beside her father, though her eyes never left Hashirama.

"Take care of yourself, Hashi," the old Uzushio leader commanded gruffly, clapping him on the back, "I'll never forgive you if you don't come back to visit us someday."

Not trusting himself to speak, he could only nod silently in compliance.

One of the seal masters stepped forward, gesturing him toward the center of the sealing array. All the reluctance he had suppressed came flooding back; The few seconds it took to walk there seemed to last an eternity. He barely noticed the seal masters taking their positions around the seal, even as the array flared with blue chakra. Mito's comforting words faded away, replaced by a pulsing uncertainty as waves of chakra that coursed through his physical body.

It was final, it was official. His visit in paradise was at an end. He would bid farewell to comfort, bid farewell to peace. Hashirama straightened his shoulders; he would face his family and all the future's doubts. There was a blinding flash; the world around him liquefied and slipped away.

 _Well, I'm going home now. Whatever home may bring._

* * *

 _Rewrote it because I didn't like Mito's characterization. I would love a review if you have any thoughts on the changes, or just any thoughts about it at all. Thanks to everyone for being so patient with me._


	2. Prologue, Part II

**Prologue, Part II:** What Makes A Family

* * *

The muggy afternoon seemed to seep right through Madara's clothes and into her skin. She swept damp hair out of her eyes, glaring all the while at the massive castle that rose through the fog some distance away. "Our target should be in there somewhere."

"Understood." Izuna landed beside her easily. "A building like this usually has strong doors and weak windows, so that's where we'll enter. We'll move in from both sides, you from the east and I from the west, and we'll search this place from the top floor down. First to eliminate the nobleman is relieved of writing the mission report. How's that?"

"An excellent course of action," she said, grinning. "And I think the need for stealth goes without saying. Our employer does want to make him an example though, so we can use the standard salt-and-burn procedure."

Izuna smirked. "I can go around the building with explosive tags after you get the fire started. They'll be set to go off in one minute, which is more than enough time for us to get some distance. None of the guards should be a problem. Anything else?"

"Nothing, other than the fact that you're going to be the one writing the report."

"Aneki!"

She laughed at his indignant expression. "Better be fast, little brother. Faster than Hideo and Kenshin, at least."

Izuna snickered. "Those two are probably still investigating that one lead we gave them," he chortled, "They'll be at least a few hours behind us by now."

"Ha! Hideo deserves it after the mass chaos he caused on the last mission. Why Father assigned him on a team with us again, I have no idea."

"You would hope that Father learned something from that incident too," Izuna said, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "The only people we'll ever accept on the same team as us is cousin Hikaku and Father himself. I do feel bad about leaving Kenshin-san with that bastard Hideo though. He was going to have a very unfortunate accident, with the way he kept on insulting you."

"It's fine, I'm sure Kenshin-san can handle Hideo for a few hours, baby Izuna," she teased, ruffling his hair affectionately, "and you know I deal with people like Hideo all the time."

"Yes, but you shouldn't have to," Izuna grumbled, pushing her hand away and attempting to smooth his hair. He failed. "Now look what you've done," he sighed, eyeing his hair despondently. "Now none of my opponents will have a good impression of me."

"You're going to kill them regardless of their impression of you," she said, activating her sharingan and leveling her sword off her back. "I'm headed west. We'll regroup in the clearing with the abandoned village we saw a few leagues back."

"Understood. And Aneki?"

"Yes?"

"Don't do anything stupid."

She smiled. "Of course."

* * *

"I'm telling you that they left us on our own here." Hideo snapped, almost frothing at the mouth as he waved his arms with reckless abandon.

"It's only been an hour," Kenshin sighed, wearily rubbing his forehead. "Let's not make any rash conclusions—"

"An hour is more than enough for those two to finish the mission!" Hideo snarled, "With all due respect, I don't understand what Tajima-sama was thinking when he sent the two of us on a mission with _them."_ He spat out the last word like a curse.

"Even if that's the case, we have no idea where Izuna-sama and his sister are now," Kenshin pointed out reasonably, "seeing as we're currently in the agreed meeting place. With their speed they could be halfway across the Land of Water by now."

Hideo slammed his fist into a nearby tree, sharingan roaring to life. "I'll bet half my inheritance that this is all that bitch's doing," he growled, "that lead that we were told to investigate led to absolutely nothing except hours of wasted time. Just because she is Tajima-sama's daughter doesn't mean she can get away with whatever she wants. In fact, if she wasn't the clan leader's child, I would have had Father and Uncle exile her _years_ ago for stepping out of her place. That should teach her that being a shinobi isn't a _game_ for a woman to stick her nose into."

His companion shot him a glare. "Madara-san is a very capable shinobi, Hideo-san. And don't let Izuna-sama catch you saying that."

"Izuna? Izuna only has good sense when her majesty isn't around. Whenever Madara is nearby, he follows her around and does whatever she wants him to do, like a dog! Why, if he becomes clan leader while she's still alive I'll—"

"Hideo!" Kenshin hissed, briefly losing his composure. He took a deep breath. "I don't know what your grievance with Madara-san is, but I'm sure it can be resolved without coming to such low insults. And Izuna–sama is our current clan heir whether you like it or not. He has more than enough competence to take the position according to both Tajima-sama and the precious council that your Father and Uncle are members of."

"Watch who you're insulting—"

" _Shut up._ Izuna-sama is the official leader of this mission and I am honor-bound as a team member to report any incidents, which I would rather not do. If you stop talking _right now,_ I will overlook this incident of blatant disrespect and not report it as mutiny. And I think you know full well what the consequences of that entail. "

Hideo stiffened and gave his companion a livid, sharingan enhanced glare, which his companion met without flinching. "You," he said through gritted teeth, "Who do you think you are to tell _me—"_

"Lest you forget, Hideo-san, you're not the only one with family in powerful positions. I suggest you think twice about what you're going to say before you raise further hostilities between your family and mine."

Hideo's teeth snapped together with an audible _clack!_ Abruptly, he turned away and headed into the woods, ignoring the way Kenshin's stare bored into his back.

His fists clenched as he recalled the man's threat. Such a personal insult to his and his family's honor will not be tolerated, but unlike Kenshin, he would not be so kind; he would not inform his target of its incoming ruin.

A malignant glint flashed through his eyes as he reached a section of particularly tangled trees. Reaching for the knives and sealing ink on his belt, he set to work.

* * *

Madara casually wiped the blood off her sword with a corner of the noble's bed sheet, ignoring the dying gasps of the man. It really was pathetic that for all the man's wealth, he hadn't hired anyone especially challenging. She gave the dead bodyguards in the corner a dispassionate glance, pushing down a twinge of pity. None of them had been prepared when she dropped down from the ceiling, and even her most difficult battle had only lasted moments. What a pointless waste of life.

She rubbed off the last bit of crimson and strode into the hallway, her sword once again bright and gleaming. With the nobleman dead, it was time to finish the job. Returning her sword to its sheath, Madara turned to face the doorway leading to the dead nobleman's bedroom and made a single hand sign.

' _Katon: Gokakyu no jutsu.*'_

The enormous ball of flame was more than sufficient to set the room ablaze. Already, smoke was billowing out the smashed window in the noble's bedroom. Madara eyed her handiwork for a moment more to ensure the fire was spreading before leaping out the nearest window. She dropped neatly into the castle courtyard and sprinted into the forest without looking back.

There was a roar reminiscent of a thunderclap as she reached the prearranged meeting place. The ground was trembling from the force and she wondered exactly how many explosive tags Izuna had slapped on the castle ceilings.

The Uchiha in question came hurtling into the clearing not long after. "Best one yet." He dusted off his sleeves and stretched, looking extremely pleased with himself.

"It sure was impressive, but you still have to write the mission report," she quipped, earning her a punch towards the arm.

She dodged it nimbly even as Izuna grumbled under his breath. "Well, at least the mission is completed, even if I do have to write this stupid report," he said at last, sighing. "And here I was thinking I wouldn't have to do it for once."

"Better luck next time."

"Oh shush, you."

She smiled at him indulgently. "Want to go pick up Kenshin-san and the idiot now?"

Her brother brightened visibly. "Maybe Hideo died of an aneurysm," he said hopefully.

"Don't count on it."

Izuna made a show of slumping in disappointment, before his eyes lit up. "You know what?" he said, chuckling deviously, "we should walk there instead of going full shinobi speed. That'll give Hideo some more time to off himself, and we get a nice break as bonus. How about it?"

Madara laughed. "As amusing as that would be, I think we should get going. I may dislike Hideo as much as the next person, but I have no grievances about Kenshin-san. We should hurry back so he doesn't have to put up with Hideo's rants by himself for too long."

Her brother shuddered. "Ugh," he complained, before leaping into the nearest tree. "Last one to the meeting place has to clean the other person's weapons!"

"Again, Izuna?" She said in amusement, "You're just piling more work on yourself, you know."

"You never know!" He called down from his perch. "Maybe I like doing work for you," he muttered under his breath before speeding away.

Madara froze. For a long moment, she stared at the branch the Izuna had occupied, his admission echoing in her ears. Warmth rushed through her being, flooding through her soul. She couldn't remember the last time she had smiled so wide.

 _I won't ever let anything happen to you, little brother. I swear it._

* * *

Over an hour had passed when Madara arrived at the clearing that had served as Hideo and Kenshin's waiting room. Upon entering the open area, she was immediately on maximum alert.

"It's empty," she barely heard Izuna say in astonishment.

Sharingan swirled to life as she strained to detect the chakra signatures of the two missing Uchiha, all the while forcing down her rising panic. Kenshin was one of the most decorous Uchiha around and well liked by many, she and Izuna included. His father Mitsuo loved him dearly and was one of the few council members who acknowledged her achievements. And he was family.

Even Hideo, who was an aggravating nuisance, was still family, and so her sharingan hyper-focused when she spotted a nearly unintelligible shred of Hideo's chakra leading into the woods.

"There! He went that way," she gestured fervently and she sprung into action. "You stay and keep looking for Kenshin!" She called to Izuna who nodded firmly, his own sharingan already activated.

The lingering traces of chakra had been expertly concealed and were faded with time, making them even harder to track. Even she was strained to the utmost with the task.

"Aneki!" She suddenly heard, and without thinking she rushed toward the sound of her brother's voice.

"Come take a look at this," Izuna said when she came into view. He motioned towards a particularly tangled section of forest before him, his eyebrows furrowed and his gaze utterly serious. She focused her vision in the direction her brother indicated and drew a sharp breath.

"Yeah, that was my reaction," Izuna's voice was grim. "This area has been cleaned before we came here, but there's a faded blotch of Kenshin-san's chakra on the ground. He was definitely there, and he wasn't in good condition."

Cold air burned her lungs as she realized what the implications were. "Kenshin-san is one of the more capable shinobi in the clan," she breathed, "if something was capable of injuring him this badly it was either a Senju ambush, or…"

Judging by how Izuna's expression changed, he had come to the same conclusion as she. "We had better report this to Father immediately," he said at last, "it seems that there is a traitor amongst us."

* * *

"Uchiha Hideo reporting."

"You may enter."

Hideo opened the sliding door and stepped into the clan head's office. In the center of the room sat a low, elegant bamboo table that served as a desk. On its surface, mission scrolls and miscellaneous paperwork were piled in neat stacks. A faint scratching sound was audible as the man behind the table worked with a thin brush.

"Tajima-sama." He bowed his head in respect.

The man in question set down his brush and turned. "Please sit, Hideo-san." His tone was stern and serious. "Regarding this mission, I must admit I am most displeased by the returning state of Uchiha Kenshin. I'm expecting a thorough explanation from you based on your claim as eyewitness. I hope you do not disappoint me."

Hideo sat before Tajima's desk, his back straight and his posture stiff. A strange glint flashed through his eyes too quickly to be seen.

"I will recount this mission to the best of my abilities, Tajima-sama."

Tajima's eyes sharpened and he folded his hands together, businesslike. "Do not omit any details."

"Yes sir," Hideo dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Izuna-sama, Kenshin-san, Madara, and I arrived at the specified zone in the Land of Water at around midday two days ago. We stopped at the nearest populated island to ask for general information on the target, as the area was too massive to scout efficiently. The locals revealed the island where the nobleman was living, and we arrived there at sundown and made camp."

"Just before dawn the next day, Kenshin-san set a designated meeting place and we set off in two-man teams to locate the target. We were to return by sundown and everyone agreed to call for backup should it necessary upon finding the nobleman."

"Izuna-sama and Madara had still not returned by the time Kenshin-san and I came back about an hour before sunset. We waited for some time, but there was no sign of their return and Kenshin-san thought they might have run into trouble. We went out again to search for them, but as we were searching, we heard an explosion towards the east side of the island and went to investigate."

"What was the magnitude of this explosion?"

"I heard the sound clearly, sir, and the epicenter was several leagues away."

"I see. Continue."

"Kenshin-san and I went in opposing directions to investigate the explosion out of caution, and we discovered the debris of some sort of stone structure. One of the bodies on site wore clothes bearing the symbol of the nobleman, so Kenshin-san and I set a tentative conclusion that the mission was complete. We had intended to confirm this with Izuna-sama and Madara when we find them. Since the mission was assumed to be complete, Kenshin-san and I headed back in the direction of the meeting place."

At this, he stopped and took a deep breath. "The incident happened along the way. Kenshin-san was leaping through the trees when he suddenly had a misstep. He fell off the branch and triggered a trap wire, and several knives shot towards his back as he was falling. Kenshin-san landed hard on his head and lost consciousness afterward."

"I was following a little ways behind when he was injured and I immediately went to check on him. I tried my best to staunch the bleeding with the bandages I carried around, but his condition still was not very good. After I treated him, I went ahead to check for more traps and discovered that the entire area had anti-chakra seals painted on the trees. There were also at least two other knife traps, so I avoided the entire area and carried Kenshin-san back to a clearing I saw along the way. I changed his bandages and then brought him back here."

"…I notice that you did not carry Kenshin-san back to the meeting ground. Is there a reason for this?"

This was the most crucial moment of his act. Hideo dropped his gaze and scanned the room nervously, before lowering his voice to a nearly imperceptible level: "The traps were of Uchiha make, Tajima-sama."

The clan leader's expression hardened. "…I expect that you understand the seriousness of your accusation, Hideo-san."

"I do, sir."

Silence reigned.

Tajima's stare never left him. Although the leader did not activate his sharingan, Hideo could still feel the frigid intensity that radiated from the man's eyes. He fought back the urge to swallow, feeling his insides twist as those eyes pierced him through and pinned his vulnerable thoughts to the wall. Summoning the last of his resolve, he forced himself to meet that terrifying gaze.

The light in Tajima's eyes flickered, and his stare hardened momentarily before turning away.

"…Interesting." At the verdict, Hideo mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

"You have given me much to think about, Hideo-san. The clan thanks you for your service. Dismissed."

"Yes sir."

It took massive effort to walk out of the office in a normal fashion. He did not relax until he had walked out of the office complex altogether.

In the back of his mind, it occurred to him that he should feel vindicated by his vengeance. His traps had functioned the way they were supposed to, and his story and its implications were taken as seriously as he had hoped. Yet he could not think of his plans without a phantom glare boring into his back.

The sourness of bruised pride singed his throat. Damn that Tajima! With his cold gaze and haughty demeanor, it was no wonder his offspring were such hateful beings. Especially Madara with her arrogance and infuriating power…

He would make them all pay.

* * *

Madara took a deep, calming breath as she stood before the door to her father's office. "Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Izuna reporting," she said, doing her best not to sound harried.

She had scarcely heard the customary "you may enter" before she was sliding the door open and sweeping into the room. Izuna followed her with a little more decorum, pausing to bow to Tajima before sitting down.

"Father—"

"I think I already know the purpose of your visit, Madara, Izuna," Tajima interrupted smoothly, "It's regarding the two missing shinobi who were assigned to you on your mission, one of whom is grievously injured and the other is suspected of being the perpetrator, am I correct?"

"You needn't worry," he continued, ignoring their stunned expressions, "Hideo-san and Kenshin-san are both within the compound at this moment. Kenshin-san is being cared for in the infirmary."

"How severe are his injuries?" Izuna asked.

Tajima's expression turned grim. "As bad as the two of you suspected. He was brought back here by Hideo-san approximately fifteen hours ago and is currently still unconscious. He has sustained several knife wounds, three of which are very deep and are in critical areas. His concussion is so severe that Miyuki-san fears that he may never regain consciousness, even if he lives through his other injuries."

She listened to the description with a growing sense of unease. "Father," she began, but she was again interrupted.

"Madara," Tajima said, turning to look her in the eye, "I know what you are thinking. You want to see Hideo-san permanently removed from the shinobi forces and exiled in disgrace like the criminal he is. I can see it in your eyes."

There was a pause. She waited.

"But I cannot do it."

Her temper flared. "Why not?" She asked sharply.

"Because the current political climate prevents it," Tajima answered simply."Kenshin-san's father Mitsuo and Hideo-san's father Daiki were not on friendly terms to begin with. Should it be revealed that Hideo was the one who injured Kenshin to this degree, the clan could devolve into civil war, which would destroy us in times like these."

"But of course, Mitsuo-san will demand that someone is punished for the current state of his son. And so I must make a request of you, Madara."

Her eyes narrowed sharply, and she mentally berated herself for her unpreparedness. Of course, there was a catch in the whole affair; there was no way Tajima would let her walk away unscathed. She just never imagined he would stoop so low. Gritting her teeth, she opened her mouth to give a scathing retort, but she never got the words out.

"No." Izuna stood from his seat. "No, you can't ask Nee-san to do that, Father. I won't allow it!" His hands were trembling with rage, but his voice held firm. "I won't let Madara make that kind of sacrifice, I won't. Let me do it instead, hasn't she suffered enough already?"

Tajima's eyes widened in shock. Madara was torn between laughing at him and snarling at herself for not having seen this coming. "My son, do you know what you are saying?" Her father exclaimed, "Your reputation will be torn to shreds if you accept this burden, and I may even have to exile you from the clan. You will be hated and vilified your entire life with no chance of redemption. You will never know peace! You'll be insane before a month is out."

Izuna opened his mouth to argue again, but Madara had a decision. She raised a hand to stop him. "It's okay, little brother. Really." She turned to look at him, making her voice soft and soothing as she spoke, "You are the clan heir, and you bear more responsibility to this clan than you do to me."

"That's not true," Izuna bit in furiously, "You're the most powerful Uchiha in the clan and everyone knows it! They're all just too proud and ignorant to acknowledge it! Anyone in this clan is replaceable, even I, but a hundred men can't replace what you do!" He seemed to have forgotten about Tajima's presence.

"That's not true, Izuna," she answered after a moment of choked silence. _No one can ever replace you._ She shook herself mentally. What had to be done will be done. "The Uchiha have always accepted you more than they have I. You are powerful, brilliant, the star of this generation, how could they not love you? I won't let you throw it all away for my sake."

"Don't argue with me," she added when Izuna tried to say more. "I have dealt with hatred and bigotry my entire life. I can handle this better than you, so I'm best for the job. Don't argue with me." Her brother's eyes narrowed. His gaze was still mutinous, but at least he kept silent.

She turned to Tajima resolutely. "I will accept your request. You can tell everyone that it was I who set the traps and hurt Kenshin." She smiled sardonically; her mouth tasted like ashes. "You can tell everyone that I betrayed the Kenshin and the clan as a result."

 _And that's what you always wanted, wasn't it? To get rid of me? Because of the hidden threat that I posed to your position and authority? Well, now you have your wish._

She bowed stiffly to her father and left the room.

* * *

The office was quiet. Izuna maintained a stony silence and refused to look at his father. Tajima, on the other hand, was clutching his head with both hands as if suffering a migraine. He did not seem to notice the tacit disapproval of his son.

Parent and child were silent for a long time.

"That was unnecessary, Tajima-sama," Izuna said suddenly, his gaze still fixed on the door as if waiting for Madara to burst in at any moment.

His father sighed at the sound of his title and rubbed his temple. "I know you are upset with the situation," he began tiredly, "but you of all people should know—"

"'Upset' is a rather mild word."

"You know I loathe interruptions, Izuna."

Izuna's smile held no trace of its usual warmth. "I'm certain that most people would loathe being labeled a traitor as well, especially if they're innocent."

Tajima's eyes narrowed sharply. "I already explained this," he hissed, "With the political ramifications at hand I had no other choice."

"But you did. You are the leader of this clan, surely you could have explained the situation to Elder Mitsuo and Elder Daiki?" Izuna snapped, his eyes steely and unforgiving. "Your authority will lend you credence. You could have called on the council and told them that this incident purely Hideo's doing and had no implications on his family. What choice would they have but to believe you?"

His father's jaw tightened. "That ploy of yours is too risky," he snarled, "If there was any doubt about Hideo's guilt Elder Daiki would snatch it up. He can't afford to be disgraced by such a son. It would be impossible for me to indict him!"

"There is no such thing as 'impossible,' Tajima-sama," Izuna observed candidly, "there is only 'unwilling.'"

"Are you suggesting that I was unwilling to punish Hideo because I _wanted_ to mark my own daughter a backstabber?"

"Yes. You wanted it, if the way you treated her these past thirteen years are any indication. In fact I would say you were deliberate."

The bamboo desk cracked under the force of Tajima's fist. "You," he hissed, "If you weren't my son—" He forced in a deep breath and let it out. "I can have you disowned for such insolence."

"But you wouldn't. And though I am not a mind reader, I have a good guess as to why." Izuna's expression was as placid as water. "On the surface, you are a competent clan leader capable of making difficult decisions. And you are as long as those decisions don't involve yourself."

"What are you—"

"You know how to prioritize, when to use the sacrifices of others to greatest effect. But when it comes to your own, your judgment fails because you are _unwilling._ Uchiha has always been ambitious; it runs in our blood. So it makes sense that you're the most ambitious of us all, as our leader. You don't want to give up power. Not even a shred of it. You hate it above all when someone threatens that power that you so painstakingly earned."

His father had gone deathly still. His hand was pressed against the desk and his jaw was still clenched, but his eyes were wide and wavering.

"You refuse to indict Hideo because his father may cause you trouble in the council, which may threaten your leadership. You hate Madara because her talent and skill threatens your position as clan leader, so you encouraged the prejudices that already existed against her. You also hate me to some extent because I remind you of yourself when you were young, and you fear that I will follow your footsteps and overthrow you. And yet, you will keep me as clan heir because I am a marker of your achievements. No one can deny you leadership when your son is one of the most powerful shinobi in generations. Same could be said of Nee-san. Did I miss anything?"

Tajima said nothing. Izuna could see his father's intent stare, but he could glean no meaning from the gaze; it was blank.

"Madara knows this as well," He said, frowning at how Tajima started at the name. "She understands why you did what you did. You had always wanted to get rid of her, so branding her a traitor to save your own skin was exactly your style. And she accepted it."

"…Why?" His father's voice was hushed.

Izuna smiled humorlessly. "Why? That is indeed the question."

The answer to that question lay in disconsolate nights and bitter days that Tajima did not deserve to know about. Time and time gone by as children, then shinobi, then adults, both praying that if they gave _enough,_ their loving father of the past would return.

 _We really were fools._

"So," He asked finally, "since you have nothing to say, I have a request for you. The punishment normally assigned to a betrayal is a public declaration, suspension from the ranks for six months, then probation under constant watch for the next twelve months. There is no need for any of that; she will be tormented enough by the clan's suspicion."

"…Are you asking me to exonerate her?"

It took an immense effort to suppress his rage. "She has committed no crime," he snapped, "Any punishment that you would have assigned would be purely for appearances' sake, and if anything you _owe_ her. No one from our clan will trust her after this, and she'll be just short of publicly vilified. I would say that warrants a response on your part."

"To make it even clearer," he went on before Tajima could interrupt, "I will tell you exactly what I want. You will not publically humiliate her. You will not suspend her. You will not put her on probation."

"Instead, you will do things my way. I would ask you to tell Hideo to keep his mouth shut, but he's been back fifteen hours too long. His version of the story has probably spread through the entire compound by now. So, you will inform Elder Mitsuo that his son's injuries were caused by an accident with Madara's traps. It can't deviate too much from Hideo's story, because then it will be unbelievable, but you can make this work. You've had to persuade plenty of clansmen before with less convincing stories than this."

"In the meantime, give Nee-san long, simple missions for a time so she can be active but out of the way of the clan's anger. We will wait until Hideo's story had died down before bringing her back. She deserves at least this much protection from you."

"And do you realize how I will be viewed after those actions?" Tajima demanded, "Accident or not, they will want her to be punished in full. Mitsuo-san is already incensed at Kenshin's injuries, and it does not help that your sister is not a well-liked figure in the clan. The Elders will say that I'm soft on my relations, and then the doubt will come pouring in from all directions. This could endanger the standing of our entire family. Even your position as clan heir may be jeopardized!"

"First off, the hatred for Madara is one that you had encouraged, which makes it your responsibility. And secondly, I don't care."

"You don't—?!"

"I don't care what happens to your position. I don't care what happens to _me._ Whenever I walk outside, I hear my sister's name mocked in the streets. I refuse to give those people further reason to do so, and I am tired working under spiteful elders who care more about personal gain than the clan's well-being. All I want is for my family to be happy, and you will not get in the way. You're no father of mine if you won't protect your own children. I hope I've made my position clear."

Tajima's eyes narrowed. "Is that a threat?"

Deliberately, Izuna rose from his seat and walked until he stood directly before Tajima's desk. His voice simmered with anger. "I may be only seventeen but I'll have you know that you haven't been keeping track of me. I am powerful, more powerful than you can ever imagine. Should you not follow through with my request, I can simply _remove_ you. And once I am clan head I will personally exonerate Nee-san of all crimes, as she rightfully should be."

The chakra behind his eyes swirled, bleeding into the familiar red of mangekyo, and Izuna smiled.

"It won't even be difficult."

* * *

The moon had risen by the time Izuna returned to the house he and Madara shared. As soon as she had been able, Madara had left their father's residence for a small, secluded house at the edge of the compound. She never asked him to come with her, and he never asked her permission before moving in.

The entirety of the house was dark; they never used candles. After a few weeks of tripping over furniture and running into walls, he had memorized the exact location of every single object in the residence, a skill that had saved him when the compound was attacked at night several months ago. Now, careful listening guided him into the armory, which emitted the distinct sound of cloth on metal.

His sister had her back facing the door, but she showed no sign of alarm when he entered. He could make out a row of polished knives on the table, barely visible in the dimness. Wordlessly, Izuna approached and placed a scroll beside the cleaned weapons.

The sound of polishing stopped. "What is this?"

"Surveillance mission to the northern part of the Land of Fire, near the Senju stronghold of Hanashi."

Even in the darkness, he could see how her dull eyes had widened. "This…does this mean…." She faltered, and for a moment she couldn't seem to speak.

"Yes, Aneki. It means Father has taken back his request. Officially, there is no evidence of sabotage suspected regarding Kenshin-san's injuries, and therefore no one could be indicted. You are free to continue living as you please."

His sister said nothing. She slowly reached out towards the scroll he had brought, as if afraid it would vanish the instant she touched it. Izuna watched quietly as she rolled it open, eyes scanning the contents.

"It really is true…." She snapped the scroll shut and tossed it carelessly on the table, turning fully towards him.

"Hey, careful with that," he said mildly, gesturing to the scroll. "That took quite a bit of work to get."

Madara's eyes glinted. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

Izuna smiled. "Thank you"s and "You're welcome"s has long become extraneous in their communication. The way his sister's posture straightened and the way her eyes were shining was more than enough for him. And he knew she could see his smile even in the darkness.

"The clan will still be in turmoil," he warned. "Hideo's story is known throughout the compound and has many believers. I will stay and try to calm the waters until you return."

 _Go now. Stay safe. I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you._

His sister stood and gathered up her knives into a pouch. "I'll be fine. It's you I'm worried about."

 _Don't worry. I always come back, just as you're always forgiven._

* * *

The wind screamed as she traversed the woods, blotting out the sounds of the night. All her senses were on maximum alert. Though surveillance missions were notorious for being long, tedious, and thoroughly boring at times, they were nonetheless assigned to enemy territory. Caution was a necessity, and with her doubly so. Tensions between the Uchiha and Senju were mounting every day; one misstep on her part could drag her entire family into yet another long and bloody conflict.

Her sharingan was active with minimal chakra to avoid sensor shinobi, and she scanned her surroundings every step of the way. With her vision, the trap fields were simple to negotiate. As of now, she had already dodged several knife traps, wire nets, and sentry stations. Strange arrays and seals that glowed blue with chakra were given a wide berth. However, despite all her caution and visual prowess, she was still caught off guard.

It happened just as she was edging onto the crown of an enormous tree. She was heading for the highest branch when the wood beneath her suddenly _moved._ An alarming number of branches shot out like ropes, attempting to trap her, and she only just had time to leap away.

Swallowing her instinct to shout in surprise, Madara somersaulted in midair, managing to land on her feet a few trees away. Her eyes widened when she saw two chakra signatures from the nearby sentry station hurtling towards the present area, and she smothered her chakra not a moment too soon.

"The movement came from over here," one of the sentries said, cautiously observing the tree that had just thrown her off. Madara noted in fascination that the limbs that had just reached out to grab her had all receded back to their normal positions. Had she not seen the trap for herself, she would not have believed it existed.

"I'm not sensing anything abnormal," said the other, "perhaps your eyes made a mistake, or maybe you were too tired."

"I definitely saw _something_ move in this area," the first sentry muttered, before turning to his companion. "Hashirama-sama told us that these trees would move and act as a trap touched by a source of foreign chakra. That means we could have an intruder hanging around somewhere."

"Well I for one would suggest that you look over your eyesight properly," the second sentry snapped, "We don't want to bring this to his attention without solid proof. He just came back from Uzushio recently and requires rest, not baseless reports of attack."

"Even so, I'm going to call in Hotaka-san. If there's any lingering chakra, he'll be able to detect lingering chakra with his sensor skills. And we're supposed to report to him anyways if weird shit happens around this tree."

"Fine. But if he can't find anything, I will write this off as a false alarm and call you out on it. Who knows? Hashirama-sama was rather tired from the journey back. Perhaps he made a mistake with the jutsu."

"Maybe," the first sentry said thoughtfully, "but I think not. I am no sensor myself, but that man is something else entirely." He turned to leave.

"I know what you mean. When Butsuma-san announced his return that morning I…" their conversing voices faded into the sound of the wind, but Madara had heard enough. She knew she didn't have long before those two returned with the tracker, but she couldn't resist observing the strange tree one more time.

She couldn't activate her mangekyo here without drawing massive attention, so she scanned the tree with normal sharingan instead. To her amazement, she could find no trace of seals on the plant or any signs of tampering at all. Instead, the plant pulsed with lively green chakra so thick and potent that she nearly flinched away. Her discovery, combined with what the sentries had said...

 _This…could it be?_

The legendary power that only the Senju clan was said to possess, unobserved for the past one thousand years. _Mokuton._

 _It had to be._ She smiled grimly. Her blood pounded through her veins at the thought of this mysterious, powerful new enemy, different from everything she had ever faced, and all she had was a name.

"…Hashirama, wasn't it?"

* * *

*Great Fireball Jutsu.

Hanashi means "City of Flowers" according to my very unreliable online translator. I would love a review if you can spare the time.


	3. Prologue, Part III

**Prologue, Part III:** When I was Home

* * *

 _The evening sky bled in through his window along with the last of the sun, red and golden light drying away into dark royal blue canvas dyed in indigo and draped in black, the constellations dripping from velveteen folds and scattering across the night's entirety._

 _Tomorrow he would be in a different world._

" _You have to be back for my sixth birthday, Hashirama-nii!" Kawarama commanded, his bright grin reminiscent of the absent moon. "I'll have learned that cool wood-jutsu you use by then and lots and lots of other tricks so you'll never beat me in a spar again, and then we can all go get dango together! And I want you to bring me a really cool birthday present from Uzushio, even cooler than what you made me last year, you hear me?"_

 _Itama, ever so quiet and sensitive, observed the scene from the faded background. All of heaven's stars found their reflections in his large, shimmering brown eyes. "When are you going to come back, brother?" he mumbled._

" _Soon, soon," He had said reassuringly, crunching shattered promises between his teeth. "Soon, I'll come back. I'll be back before you know it."_

* * *

The door slid open with a low rumble. Light from the hallway windows poured into the room but couldn't seem to get past the threshold, and _he_ was the only one who took the step from the corridor into this silent little world. His sandals scuffed grime from the floor, leaving ragged tracks in his wake. Dust, choking the air. He could barely breathe.

When he found out, he knew he couldn't go to their graves. A cold, lonely plot of earth graced only by the rotted scent of grief and fresh mildew had no trace of his brothers' memories. It was here, in this room where they lived, laughed, _breathed,_ that their presence was strongest. So here he came.

Itama's satchel, the leather chipped and dry with lack of care, dangled from its hook on the wall. One of Kawarama's moth eaten shirts was thrown haphazardly on the floor. Two piles of kunai, one dirty, one clean, lay scattered at the foot of Kawarama's bed, the polishing rag nowhere to be seen. Equipment dull with age was spread across their shared desk; a wrinkled scroll was sprawled across the length of Itama's chair, stretching onto the floor. Everything was covered in dust.

Gently, he plucked a rusted knife from the table as if it were made of glass. His every movement was leaden, numb. Even if he took that blade and slit his wrist, jammed it straight in his heart, he doubted he would feel no more than a sting.

The knife fell to the floor and broke in two.

A brush lay on top of his brother's scroll, its bristles stiff with long dried ink. Once, Itama had held this brush, dragged it over the thick paper with a squinting eye. Once,he would have showed whatever new characters he learned to Hashirama, his hands smudged and streaked but his smile still warm enough to melt winter frosts.

Itama was gone.

The leeching cold of numbness settled in every crook of his form, snow and ice filling every crevice of his mind; his heart pumped frozen blood to a deadened soul.

His brothers were gone.

He reached out and gingerly picked up the scroll, blowing off the dust with soft breaths. It seemed to be a scratch sheet, covered with scribbles, characters, and the occasional doodle of a technique. His eyes traced lines of familiar handwriting until he came upon a date, circled and starred with thick, careful strokes: Kawarama's birthday.

… _Bring me a present from Uzushio, okay?_

How many years of their lives had he missed? Kawarama's grin was wide, red and ruddy cheeked, his arms innocently outstretched for a hug; a memory years outdated. His eyes lingered over that precious smile for an eternity before letting it dissipate into the dusty air.

When the end approached, where was he then? Not here, not here where his brothers needed him, not here where he needed to be. Had they waited for him all this time, cut themselves on the shards of his broken promises, cursed his name with their last, bitter breaths?

He turned away, the very air suffocating him where he stood. _Breathe,_ he rasped to himself, but how could he, when every breath only seemed to hurt him more? His lungs were collapsing under the weight of his failures, a burden that crushed his soul and crumpled his heart like rice paper.

It was hard, so hard to make himself speak. "Hello Kawarama, Itama," he said, his voice cracking, splintering, echoing in the empty room. "It's been a while, hasn't it? I've done so many things, seen so much all these years. Uzushio…" He faltered. What use did he have for a paradise without those he loved?

"You would have loved it there…." Breathe in, breathe out _. Breathe, damn it,_ he snapped to himself. Air tumbled in his lungs.

He briefly thought of growing flowers before dismissing the thought. To leave a lonely blossom here to die, cut off from life and sun, seemed an irony all too cruel. He had grown flowers for them once, as rare and exotic as he could think of. Made a garden for them in the shelter of the woods, where their father would never see.

 _That they would never see again._ Torn, ragged lips twisted into a smile, bitter to crack stones, a mockery of joy harsh enough to tear him in two. Tears spilled down his cheeks with abandon, stinging the corners of his eyes like acid. He did not try to stop them.

All the platitudes and goodbyes for the dead, he would never say out loud; doing so was closure insufficient. His brothers deserved more than that from him, so much more than that. What they got instead were his failures, all the promises he had made and broke by hand. Words clung to the sides of his throat, trickling, crawling like tar.

" _Soon, I'll come back."_

What a liar he'd been.

He was a worthless brother. _A worthless confidant. No better than the father you hate and love but despise. Go on, gasp, and tear at your lungs. Rip out your heart, fall on your knees, choke on your air a little more._

 _Have you got anything to say for yourself?_

His shoulders slumped; regret could cut deeper than any knife. He looked to the heavens for solace, but saw only the moldering ceiling of an empty room.

Nothing more he could say. He made no apologies.

* * *

When Tobirama returned into the Senju compound at sundown, the sentry told him something that sent his mind spinning to a crashing halt.

"Your brother returned yesterday morning, Tobirama-sama."

In his daze, he had almost asked the man to clarify which brother he meant; after his clan's last battle two weeks ago, it had seemed more likely that Kawarama or Itama would rise from the dead before Hashirama came home.

He turned mechanically and sprinted off. "Some thanks would have been nice," he heard the man mutter distantly, but his mind was such a whirl that he could scarcely think, much less speak.

Stunned disbelief. A sensation so foreign he did not dare label it as hope.

Tobirama had not felt hopeful in a long time.

He had never gone faster in his entire life; the wind stung his face, shrieked by his ears. Even that fateful day, when he rushed to save his brothers, he had known by some instinct that it was far too late. But now, here—

The door to his house loomed before him. In the gathering darkness, the silence was eerie, and for a moment Tobirama shivered. His hand reached out, stretching towards the handle, touched it; it was slim and smooth, cool under his fingertips. He gritted his teeth and yanked the door open, stepping inside.

"Hashirama?" he called into the darkened corridors. He wandered past the empty kitchen and the central armory, fearful to reach out with his senses lest he find an empty house. He was eighteen; he had lost two brothers within the last three years, missing all the while the person he loved and respected more than anyone in the world. The hope that his last sibling would return had kept him alive all these years. If it were taken away now, he didn't know what he might do.

Tobirama held his breath as he stepped into the last wing of the building that housed what remained of his family. His father's room, then Hashirama's, which he had occupied since the deaths of his younger siblings. His old room followed, locked and in disuse, and after that….

His eyes narrowed in confusion. He had entered that last room a few weeks before the end, to give Itama his scroll and surprise Kawarama for his ninth and final birthday. After they had gone, he had locked the room and bolted the door, vowing never to go back inside. In a rare show of sentimentality, Butsuma had secretly done the same. But now the door lay wide open, years worth of dust spread all across the threshold, and he approached hardly daring.

With infinite care, Tobirama arrived before the entranceway and peered inside. The moon, full and round, was rising at last, its silvery light washing across the entire room. He saw the rusted weapons, the ragged scrolls, the faded and moth-eaten sheets, but he did not comprehend them. All he saw was the silhouette of his exhausted brother snoring softly, curled upon Kawarama's bed.

Yes, it was Hashirama. His long dark brown hair was tangled and falling off the bed and even in sleep his brows were furrowed with grief, but _it was his big brother_ and his big brother was _home._

* * *

Someone shook his shoulder at the edge of his consciousness, and Hashirama started awake. He leaped out of bed, one hand instinctively grabbing a knife from his belt, but when he realized who had roused him he froze.

When he had left, Tobirama was still a child, wide-eyed and round-faced and his white hair soft and fluffed upon his head. Now, he realized with a pang just how much his brother had grown. The Tobirama who stood before him had a sharp and angular face, shadowed by a flare of spiky white hair. His slim, keen eyes were somber with weariness far beyond his age.

Perhaps, if he had been there from the start, his brother would not be looking at him with that ancient stare. He could have comforted him in sadness, sheltered him from their father's expectations, spared him the pain of carrying the world on his back for six long and bitter years.

But he was here now.

His knife hit the floor with a muted click. Hashirama spread his arms in invitation. It's been too long since his last hug, and he winced internally as he saw the awkward positioning of his arms, but he hoped the intent of the gesture would shine through. "It's been a long time, little brother," he said, and he allowed himself to truly smile.

The dust in the room swirled. _Itama, Kawarama, upon all my love for you, I solemnly swear._ He would take care of Tobirama, as he had not taken care of them; he would do everything for Tobirama that he could not do for them for as long as he drew breath.

 _I won't let you down this time._

Tobirama's eyes wavered, and for a moment he suddenly seemed unbearably young and lost. He took a single, hesitant step forward, and the next thing Hashirama knew his only remaining brother had flung himself into his arms, shaking like a child after a long and harrowing nightmare.

His little brother, who was always so sturdy, so iron-willed, was crying. Full, heart-wrenching sobs spilled forth in waves, and each sob cracked his heart a little more. He had left for a paradise of peace and freedom and his little brothers had paid the price; Kawarama and Itama with their lives, and Tobirama with his years of grief and loneliness untold.

He listened as he could not have listened. He soothed as he could not have soothed. He understood as he could not have understood during his time spent in Uzushio. All for grief and all for love; it was the least, _the least_ he could do.

"All this time, after Itama and Kawarama were gone, I was wondering—" Tobirama swallowed thickly, but resolutely; his sobs were starting to subside. He took a deep, shuddering breath. "All this time, I was wondering...praying I would see you again. I kept thinking that maybe one day, you would come back. Without that, if I hadn't had that—"

"Shhhh…." Hashirama interrupted gently. "It's okay, it's okay," he murmured, comforting his brother the way he had years ago, when their mother passed. He too was crying, but through the tears shone a genuine, determined smile. "It's okay, little brother," he whispered, "everything will be okay, I promise."

 _I'm here now. I'm here with you._

* * *

The inevitable happens. Some part of him really had hoped that his father would let him alone a little longer, and yet here he was standing before the clan head's office door, less than two days after he got back. There was a sharp creak from somewhere inside; he felt himself tense involuntarily.

"Come in." His father's voice rasped forth from deep within the office, and Hashirama was vaguely reminded of a dragon at the depths of its lair. He breathed deeply before entering, straightening his back with pride he did not feel.

"Father," he acknowledged lowly. Butsuma did not even look up from the scroll he was reading. After a few moments of silence, he tossed the scroll aside and met Hashirama's eyes with his unwavering stare. He returned that gaze, but only just.

"There is a reason I called you here today," his father said, dragging his voice as if he were lecturing a particularly dull-witted child. "You will pay attention to every word I say. Tobirama has already been briefed on the situation before you came. I expect there to be no confusion or complications of any kind. Understand me?"

He cursed his dry throat. "Yes, Father."

Butsuma sighed heavily. He withdrew a map from the depths of his desk and spread it across the table. "As of last week, there has been a major political crisis in the Land of Lightning," he explained impatiently, "the Daimyo has been assassinated on a customary inspection trip around the country. What's important to us is that he was assassinated before naming an heir, and a succession war has been broken out between his four sons."

"They want to hire us," he guessed. His father shot him a glare for the interruption but did not object.

"Yes," Butsuma answered instead, "one of the princes offered us very handsome rewards in return for our service. His stronghold is located in the center of the Northern province. Soon we will shift the majority of our men to the city of Raiu, where we will act as elite reinforcements to the prince's preexisting forces."

Hashirama observed the map carefully. "Rocky terrain, mountainous, loads of narrow passages," he muttered, before his eyes widened in horror.

"Father," he said tightly, looking Butsuma in the eye for the first time. "There are too many potential ambush sites on the way to Raiu. The prince's enemies are sure to take advantage of them. Even on our most carefully planned route, we would still have at least three unavoidable choke points. There they could bottle us in, trap our forces in the narrow ravines and valleys where we can't make use out of superior could still lose up to one tenth of our men just on the way there!" He could almost see it in his mind's eye: the Senju, clumped up at the bottom of the ravines while the enemy troops rained destruction down from above. Arrows, boulders, _jutsus,_ pouring down around his clansmen as they scatter like sheep.

"And what of it?" his father said, casually waving a hand. "In choosing to take this mission I am saying that the Senju clan can and will accept those losses."

"But there's no need for that," Hashirama noted in disbelief, his voice rising with every word. Regardless of whether he knew them or not, every single one of his clansmen was invaluable. There was no cause he knew of that was worthy of so much needless sacrifice. "I don't understand," he said, "we already have more than enough resources to get through this winter and the next—"

"It is necessary. I deemed it so as the leader of this clan."

"But _why_?" He was uncomprehending. _This couldn't possibly be for the reward,_ he thought _._ His father was a calculating man by nature; it was rare for him to be so completely irrational like this. No, there had to be something else. Had to be. Something his father was so zealously passionate about that he was willing to forsake his own logical thinking.

"This is about pride, isn't it?" he realized, Butsuma's grim endeavor suddenly all too clear in his head. "Pride, and revenge too, if I'm not wrong." He knows he isn't. "Are you really going to sacrifice the lives of our clansmen for a personal quarrel?" He asked, letting the pain sink into his voice because he already knows how his father will answer.

"Not personal, my son, but a struggle carried on for centuries by our ancestors." His father's voice thundered in his ears, ringing with a twisted righteousness. "The blood of thousands has been spilled across this land, and the souls of our murdered kin lie screaming for a justice only death could deal. It is a call that cannot be denied, a vendetta passed from father to son through all of Time until it is fulfilled. I will not rest until the enemies of the Senju clan are completely exterminated, no matter what the costs."

Hashirama's scalp crawled with the declaration. His bloodstream was sluggish with ice.

It was too much; it was too much.

"Who is it?" he asked, his stomach roiling from his father's miasma of suffocating hatred. "Who are they?" But this too, he knows, and dread is tart in his throat.

In response, his father smiled a smile that chilled him to his very core. "Who is it?" his father repeated, before breaking into a malicious laugh that rippled through his entire body.

"Ha! Who is it indeed?" Butsuma drawled, fixing him with a stare. "Hashirama, for your sake and mine, I hope that your six years of training have not had the unintended effect of wiping your mental capabilities," he said, leaning forward as he spoke.

"Listen to me carefully, my son. I will not have you to be the one to fail this single monumental task. The Senju clan and the Uchiha clan have been sworn enemies since Indra's defection from the Sage's teachings, and for centuries the Uchiha have been the murderers of our clansmen, our friends, our family. They are the ones who killed your mother, your brothers. In order to avenge our families, we will accept nothing short of the complete annihilation of the Uchiha, and for that cause I am willing to sacrifice everything. If that goal could be achieved, one-tenth of our total force is nothing, _nothing_ in comparison, do you hear me? They will have died knowing that they were avenged, that their deaths were not in vain."

"And you're going to go through this no matter what I say."

"We cannot afford weakness of mind at such a stage, Hashirama." Butsuma's eyes narrowed. "You best get this into your head now. There is no harmonious solution to be found between the Senju and the Uchiha. The only way for them to repay their transgressions against us is with their own flesh and blood. Our families lie dead in the wake of their travels, and we cannot have peace until their killers are gone from this earth. For every day the Uchiha continue to exist, our clansmen will continue to die. This cycle will not end."

Here his father paused expectantly, but Hashirama did not speak. His mind drifted back to Uzushio: the sapphire seas, the calm breeze, the people, and he wondered if the Uchiha had ever known peace, because surely if they had, they would wish for the same joy, the same tranquility? Did all roads really lead to genocide? Was there really no way to a peaceful coexistence?

In the lengthening silence, Butsuma frowned. "I see you have been away from here for too long," he said at last with a sigh. "The true horrors of wartime have faded from your memory, haven't they? I know Uzushio's serenity is a beautiful thing. I know you probably long for it, as do I. But we cannot reach it, not as long as the Uchiha continue to exist in this world. As long as they're here, the wars will go on, and you will never know peace. You cannot be naïve any longer, Hashirama, if you are to lead this clan after I'm gone. Do you understand me?"

"…"

" _Do you understand me?"_

He gritted his teeth. "…Yes, father," he lied.

* * *

"Say, Tobi," Hashirama said abruptly as they packed their bags for the journey to the Land of Lightening.

"What is it, Anija?"

"What is your opinion of the Uchiha clan?"

His little brother stopped what he was doing and raised an eyebrow. "My opinion of the Uchiha clan?" He repeated incredulously, "Why do you ask?"

"I just want to know, nothing else."

Tobirama gave him a strange look but apparently decided to humor him. "Well, frankly, I would be glad not to see another one of them for the rest of my life," he shrugged casually, before shooting Hashirama a suspicious glance. "You're not getting any funny ideas, are you?"

"No," Hashirama replied, a little belatedly. His little brother's gaze sharpened even further, but he mercifully did not pursue the subject. Hashirama continued to pack, half formed sentiments and worries swirling about him like a storm, when Tobirama's voice suddenly cut through his thoughts.

"The Uchiha are dangerous," he said, shoving scrolls into a bag with particular viciousness. "They are born and bred with hatred. Even a nine-year-old child could look at you with those accursed sharingan, and they will paralyze you and gut you without a second thought. Everyone who lacks those eyes, they despise, even if it's members of their own clan. _They've killed so many of us,_ Hashirama," he said suddenly, and the pain in his voice made Hashirama look up from his own work.

"If it weren't for them, so many of us would still be here," Tobirama's voice was ragged with bitterness, and his ruby eyes gazed far into the distance. He didn't need to elaborate further for Hashirama to understand which ones of "us" he meant.

Hashirama looked down. Slowly, he picked up one last scroll and ink set and put them into his bag, drawing the strings closed with finality.

He did not speak again.

* * *

That night, Hashirama lay unmoving, stared at the ceiling of his childhood. Out past his window and deep in the woods, he could hear the trees as they whispered their soft susurrus. The old house swayed and creaked in the evening wind as if it were one with the forest. If he really strained, he could even hear his brother's quiet pacing from just next door.

 _Look and listen, Hashirama. Look and listen hard, for tomorrow we go._ He blinked, bit his lip, and shifted his stare to the wall.

 _We go to war against all beautiful things._

* * *

 _There was a storm on the way to Uzushio. A storm like none-other._

 _His childish form was dwarfed by the vastness of the sea. The gale whipped his short brown hair into his eyes, and the ocean in all its fury collided upon the stern of his tiny ship. No land, no shore in sight. Only the roar of the wind, the crashing waves, and the light of a pale, silvered moon stark against the encroaching darkness._

 _He stared at that haunting, luminous moon with watering eyes, even as he clung to the mast for dear life. All his strength was useless in the face of Nature's full and terrible might. How naïve was his father to extol his talents such, as if he, a mere boy, could truly command such power!_

 _A wall of water slammed into the ship's side, and he was knocked flat on the deck. His grip on the mast loosened, and then a wave was tossing him into the air far away from his boat. And in that moment, just as he fell down towards the dark and the frozen seas, he reached out to that beautiful moon. If only he could touch it, if only he could hold it close forever, then maybe, just maybe…_

He plunged into the water just as the waves became licking flames.

* * *

Hashirama snapped awake, his hands scrabbling at his chest. His heart was thundering in his ribcage and his breathing came in erratic gasps as if he had just fought a week-long battle.

Somewhere in the eastern outskirts the Senju Compound, someone had triggered one of his traps. He had sensed it in a single momentous moment, staggering in its intensity, startling in its brevity; there and gone, and yet that throbbing, burning sensation remained. He leapt out of bed.

Whoever this person was, he was powerful, with superb chakra control. The phantom sense of flames was still flickering over his skin; fire natured then, overwhelmingly so. His pace quickened; Uchiha, had to be. He grabbed the kunai from under his pillow and was about to run out the door when he stopped short.

"I'm not thinking," he said out loud, before he went out the door again, this time more methodically. Stopping before Tobirama's room, he raised his fist to knock on the door when it suddenly opened from the inside.

"What happened?" his brother asked. He was already fully dressed for battle in his chest plate and greaves, and his shoulder plates clanked harshly with his every movement.

Hashirama stared. "How did you—"

"Put my armor on so quickly?" his brother finished dryly. "I never sleep the night before campaigns," he said by way of explanation. "More importantly, what the trouble?"

"Intruder," he said hurriedly, "I left chakra-sensing mokuton traps all around the compound borders, and I linked them all to my senses just as an extra precaution. Someone triggered it just a few minutes ago, and I need you to keep an eye on him until he's definitively out of this compound."

"Chakra characteristics?" Tobirama demanded.

"Very powerful, almost definitively fire-natured, so I would venture to guess Uchiha. Excellent chakra control; I sensed him for a mere instant and he had been in physical contact with my trap at that point. My sensing skills aren't bad, but as of right now I'm not familiar enough with the signatures of all our clansmen to pick him out, so—"

"Impossible…" Tobirama muttered. He no longer seemed to be listening to Hashirama. "They managed to bypass my sensory network?"

"What are you—"

"Brother," Tobirama interrupted, his voice deadly serious. "Are you sure that this intruder is a man, not a woman?"

His incredulity must have shown, for Tobirama's face flashed with irritation. "I promise you I am not fooling around. This is no time for immaturity," he snapped, "tell me, did you or did you not note the gender of this person's chakra signature?"

"No," he answered with mild exasperation. "Who would ever assume—" but Tobirama cut him off with a rough shushing gesture. He watched his little brother close his eyes, his expression resembling the classic half grimace of a sensor at work. The ensuing silence grated on Hashirama's nerves, and he nearly jumped when his brother opened his eyes and started down the hall.

"What is it?" he demanded, quickening his pace to keep step with his brother. "What's going on?"

"We must report this to all border patrols immediately," Tobirama said. His shoulders were still stiff, but the frantic edge to his voice of a few moments prior had disappeared. "I just went over the entire span of my sensory range with a fine tooth comb, and I didn't find anyone with a chakra signature matching your description. Must have been a scouting mission on their end, not an invasion. But even so we can't afford to let our guard down."

"Exactly _what_ are we alerting our sentries about?" Hashirama asked with more than a little heat. "And what was the whole business about the intruder's gender?"

At this, Tobirama paused in his steps and turned to look at him. His expression was grave. "I'm sorry, brother," he said, his tone steely, "but sometimes I forget how truly long you've been away. This report is important to be delayed, so I'll have to give you the short version of events on the way to the sentry headquarters."

"That's fine," Hashirama said stiffly. Tobirama's casual reference to his absence stung in more ways than one.

"Alright then." His brother spun on his heels and continued down the hallway. "Tell me, brother," he began conversationally, "What have you heard about Uchiha Madara?

* * *

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	4. Act I, Part I

Act I, Part I: Clash

* * *

The skies are dark; the smoke from the battlefield blots out the sun. His vines are awash around him, a river of timber beneath his feet. Forests rise at his command as fireballs the size of houses rain down about him, bombarding the earth and leaving scorched, ragged scars.

Hashirama claps his palms together: _"Mokuton: Kajukai Korin."_ Thick, gnarled branches clawed forth from the ground, globular flowers blossoming from their midst. His entire field of sight colors yellow as pollen chokes the valley air, but he's already preparing to change his position because he knows what will happen next.

Searing red light spikes at the corner of his vision, his only warning before a conflagration engulfs the forest beneath. A well-placed vine sends him catapulting into the air and away from the devastation as the temperature rockets upwards. He could hear the air rumbling like thunder as it expanded. Showers of sparks exploded through the air, the firework effects enhanced by the snapping and crackling of blackening wood.

All the while, his opponent stands at the heart of the inferno, long, dark hair streaming in the wind like smoke. The flames that creep through his forest gravitate about her form like adoring subjects. She laughs—a wild, grandiose sound that echoes through the ravaged plains.

Hashirama lands a little ways away from the blaze. Both Senju and Uchiha clansmen alike have long since fled the immediate vicinity, and they were now scattered far about the plains, fighting their own separate battles. For that reason, Hashirama refrained from retracting the pollen. It was highly unlikely that the pollen's sleeping effects would affect his opponent much, but at least it would buy him some time. He lays his palm flat on the ground, his chakra pulsing furiously into the earth.

At the same time, the Uchiha standing in the midst of the roaring fire raised her head and stared at the powdered yellow sky. Dangerous, flame-tinted eyes narrowed before closing derisively.

A fiery blast of chakra with her as the epicenter pulsed through the air—everywhere it went, flames soared as if injected with new life. For a few moments, it seemed as if the heavens themselves were burning, bleeding red across the clouds. When at last the flames died away, all that was left of the pollen was a faint crimson miasma that lingered in the air.

Hashirama saw it all from within the cover of his trees. The Senju Clan's intelligence reports combined with his own previous observations in battle all indicated that his opponent was an extremely capable chakra sensor, rivaling Tobirama's and perhaps even his own abilities.

The only way to negate a skilled sensor's considerable tactical advantage was to camouflage his own chakra signature, and he had created a veritable chakra labyrinth through his mokuton that he was now immersed within. Of course, factoring in her sharingan's ability to see chakra, he made sure to suppress his own signature until it was the same level as that of the surrounding forest.

He tracked her movements carefully from his perch, the thick foliage and twisted bark around him providing an immaculately hidden nook. The fire, having burned out the last of his original forest, was reduced to a faint, smoldering presence along the ground. His opponent steps deliberately through the wasteland, her head held high and her sword newly unsheathed at her side. Red, red eyes flitted warily from side to side, with almost frenetic fervor.

With infinite care, Hashirama edges off his branch and drops lightly to the forest ground. He knew even without looking that she was scrutinizing the forest that surrounds her. It was a significantly pre-emptive strategy: he and his chakra signature were camouflaged among his forest whereas she was out in the open. He wouldn't get a better chance than this.

Hashirama slams his palms together. Vines burst forth from the ground beneath his opponent's feet, each seeking a limb to crush and immobilize. She spun to the side, neatly dodging half the offending vines, lopping off the others with her sword. Before she could dispose of the remaining vines, however, the shoots that she had previously decapitated sprouted anew and attacked once more.

This close, he could see the faint slant of her thin brows, the beginnings of a frown etched on her face. She leaped high into the air with a burst of chakra and began making a series of familiar hand signs, but a whipcord branch slammed towards her position, forcing her to abort the jutsu halfway—that was a blow that would have shattered her spine. Hashirama would not let her burn down his cover so easily this time. With nary a thought on his part, solid, heavy vines sprout from every corner of his labyrinth and shot toward his opponent, blocking off any escape.

The Uchiha's crimson eyes flashed dangerously in the murky light, and she snarls a single, unfamiliar word.

" _Susanoo!"_

A sudden explosion of air gives way to a current of power strong enough to make his teeth hum. Ethereal blue light ignites all around the Uchiha, the simmering chakra forming a ribcage, arm bones, and even a bony neck and skull. His attacks bounce harmlessly off the skeletal exterior, and at the heart of the monstrous humanoid, his opponent narrows her fiery eyes and clenches her fist. Her ghostly blue protector—the Susanoo—seems to mirror her movements, with one key difference: when its fingers unclenched, there at the center of its palm lay three lazily spinning tomoe.

The Uchiha's brilliant red gaze falls squarely upon him with almost contemptuous indifference. _'She knows exactly where I am now,'_ he realized. He had underestimated her situational awareness: when he summoned more vines through his mokuton, his chakra would have a minuscule yet inevitable spike. Even in the midst of being attacked, she must have noted that minute difference in the surrounding chakra and deduced his position accordingly. That…spoke of a level of skill nearly inconceivable to the average mind. His heartbeat picks up at the thought. _Maybe…_

A sharp scream of air cut off his thoughts as the Uchiha seemed to have lost her patience. " _Yasaka magatama_ ," she snaps from the core of her eerie blue armor. At her words, those spinning blue tomoe shoot forth, cutting and spinning through the air. Hashirama could hear the horrible, shrieking cry of the wind as it flew straight towards him.

He slams his palm to the ground and summons a wall of woven timber. The whirling tomoe smashed straight into the center of the structure and exploded, taking out a monstrous chunk of the creation. He gives the extent of the damage a critical eye—he had been too slow. "It's really been too long since my last real battle," Hashirama chuckled ruefully, dusting himself off as he stepped out from behind the remains of his shield.

Within her ghostly shell, his opponent lets out a sardonic chortle. "The battlefield does not forgive mistakes," she taunts. Blue fire flares up about her and the skeletal warrior seemed to soak it all up, forming layers of muscle and tendons, and finally flesh. Rough swords the length of a palace entrance hall solidified in the hands of the enormous humanoid. In the flickering blue light, her red, red eyes seemed brighter than ever.

The newly formed swords slam into the earth where he had stood just half a second before. " _Katon: Ryūen Hōka!"_ he barely heard her say over the crash of splitting stone, and he dove out of the way as the first volley of fire dragons exploded on collision with the ground. Heat slammed him in the face, making his eyes water. The remaining fireballs bore down on him from all directions, sealing his movements, and he knew that if he didn't give his all on his next move, he would have no further chances.

" _Mokuton: Mokuryu,"_ he grits out from between clenched teeth, his hands flying through the seals. His familiar wooden dragon erupts from the earth at his feet and encircles him protectively, knocking aside flaming projectiles with a lash of its tail. At the same time, an explosion of chakra sent the ruined forest about him springing back to life, smothering any remaining fires as new leaves and branches sprouted in seconds. With the forest rising in his wake once more, he leaped on his dragon and faced his opponent, already preparing himself for the next assault before he paused in confusion.

The Uchiha had made no move to continue her attack. She only stood motionlessly at the center of her unearthly blue protector, her narrowed crimson eyes fixed upon the lush forest before her. "So you _were_ holding back," she says with finality, her expression darkening like thunderclouds.

Hashirama's mind grinds to a halt. "What?"

Her glare turned upon him full force, crimson irises nearly glowing with rage. "You just regenerated your World of Flowering Trees technique while simultaneously putting out all of the remnants of _my_ fire," she snapped, "You could have done that _the last three times_ I burned it down. What kind of game do you think you're playing, _Senju_? Do you think me so weak of an opponent? That I'm _**unworthy**_ of witnessing your full power?" As if daring him to answer her last question, blue fire roars to life on her Susanoo's dual swords, crackling dangerously.

"No, it isn't that," he says automatically, even as his own thoughts whirled about in his head like the winds of a storm. However, his opponent did not allow him the luxury of thinking things through—a heavy _whoosh_ of air rushed past his ears and he reacted instinctively. His dragon lunged away from Susanoo's crossed swords and wound its tail around both the creature's arms, immobilizing it, and yet he was forced to retreat when his opponent spat out yet another wall of flame.

There was a ringing explosion as the forest behind him ignited once more. "Is this all that you've got, Senju?!" his opponent derided, her Susanoo swathed in firelight like a vengeful god as she approached, both chakra blades at the ready. "Is this it?! Is this _really_ it?! Is this all the lauded Senju Hashirama, the one and only mokuton user of the Senju clan, has to offer?!"

 _Show me what you're capable of. Show me who you really are._

It was a jeer and an invitation, a challenge that he balked at the thought of taking. A duel between two powerful shinobi was not only merely each person's chakra prowess and combat experience—at their core, these duels were the ultimate tests of inner strength, of willpower, of _conviction_. And yet in this world, where physical power was founded upon an unwavering soul, he had been an exception for many, many years.

Childish, naïve at best; idiocy, even treason at worst: that was his family's verdict of his visions for peace. Even before he left for his training, he had found it necessary to dilute his ideas before his family, and after his return even more so. When two of his younger brothers had given their lives to give him more time to train, how _dare_ he say that the last thing he wanted to do was fight?

Faced with his father's punitive sermons and his last brother's rancorous hatred, he had barely even spoken in defense of his own tenets, much less lived by them. Though his convictions were strong, he had never acted in accordance with them. It was cognitive dissonance at its finest—to the point where it detracted from his capabilities. That detraction had not mattered up until now, as even distracted and conflicted, he was still more leagues ahead of the average shinobi.

But he could not afford to. Against this one incredibly talented opponent— _Madara_ —nothing less than his all would be enough. Hashirama knew this: in a battle with an opponent of her caliber, even the slightest wavering on his part would be the end of him.

It was time to come to terms with what he should have long ago.

Through all these war-torn years, he had abandoned his childhood, drenched his hands in blood, and swallowed all his pain and discomfort without a noise of complaint, and all for what purpose? Truly, all he had ever wanted was to protect the people he loved. Despite his doubts, he had never openly challenged this harsh, brutal system of clan-based conflict, and he had paid for his hesitance with the lives of his two youngest brothers. A revolutionary change was long-overdue—now that the old ways of the world have failed him so utterly, it was up to him to forge his own path.

Only the end of this endless warfare could save his suffering clan; only an enduring peacecould save his few remaining loved ones. He had planted this conviction in the depths of his soul, beyond even what his father and Tobirama could reach. They had suspected its existence, tried to exterminate it at every turn, but he had kept it rooted in his heart. This ideal, this _vision,_ was his only hope now—he would not let it wither away in the dark. And now, the time had come to let it bloom.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely to the Uchiha wreathed in blue flames. "I can't really claim to know my capabilities; I can't even claim to know who I am, but…"

"…I'm about to find out."

And as he raised his gaze fearlessly to meet those perilous eyes, he could not hold back a genuine smile—for the first time since he returned from Uzushio, perhaps for the first time in his _whole life_ _—_ he felt relieved. Even…at ease.

It was remarkable that in the following blur of time, he was could just be Hashirama, a man fighting for a cause he had finally dared to believe in. Not Butsuma Senju's eldest son, not the heir to the Senju clan, not the man crumpling under his ever-growing mountain of responsibilities, who swallowed his dreams like sinking stones. No, it was only now, surrounded by peril at all sides, that he understood what it was like to breathe without a mask; only now, that something long since tangled and knotted in his heart had loosened.

 _So this was how it felt_ , _to be at peace_ , he thought, and he could not help but crack a smile as he steered away from another volley of Yasaka Magatama. He had never before grasped how weary the constant charade had made him, but now his world had shifted irrevocably. Like a plant grown in a cold, bleak room that had seen its first ray of sun—now that he had experienced the warmth and the light, he could never return willingly to the gloom.

A sincere gratitude for the Uchiha welled up from deep within his heart— if not for her intervention, who knows how long he would have remained lost? She had forced to abandon his passive denial; she had forced him to see _himself._ In order to survive her challenge, he had no other choice but to defend what he truly wanted, and only then had he fully reconciled with his dream.

 _I seek only peace for the living, not vengeance for the dead._

And just admitting that to himself was enough, enough for him to be at peace. It was enough to reassure himself that one day, he would turn his gaze upon the storms that ravaged the world and order them to calm, and he would watch them heed his every word. But for now…he would only focus on weathering the storm that is Uchiha Madara.

Madara, as he had come to discover, moved with a distinctive, deadly grace, without one wasted action. Her every attack was elegant and purposed, meant to either counter or confuse him. Once, he even caught himself moving off the beat, and a fireball had flashed by and charred off the tips of his hair.

His mind was swirling, and yet his very soul wanted to sing—no one has ever managed to challenge him like this, to push him to the point where not even the thought of holding back had crossed his mind.

There was no room for equivocation before her; she would force him to his very limits. She would burn down his fears and doubts the way she burned down his forests, raze his defenses until he was forced to safeguard his very foundations. To meet _her_ demands, he had to bare his soul to an honest interrogation—determine if he really had what it took to survive her and the harshness of the reality she represented.

She was his ultimate test.

He would take it one-step at a time: through her, he would solidify the foundations of his convictions; through her, he would affirm the integrity of his cause. He would put his convictions through the raging inferno and watch them emerge fire-forged, as there was no doubt in his mind that this Uchiha is the most formidable opponent he had ever faced. If he could only hold on to his vision through this battle, then he could withstand anything.

 _Show me what you're capable of,_ she had demanded. So he would.

He claps his hands together and his mokuton surges with renewed fervor, the earth quaking as they clashed once more. Forest and flame alike bend and blur before his eyes, but never once did he lose sight of her lone silhouette, standing proudly at the heart of her crystalline armor. They fought for what must have been hours, but strangely, never once did Hashirama long for it to end. Rather, he almost wished he could lose himself forever to this harsh, unforgiving rhythm, in this fiery dance meant only for two.

"You're worthy _,_ Uchiha Madara," he called out, the smile on his face only brightened by the light of the flames. "You're the only one who's ever been worthy of my full power."

* * *

Her eyes were stinging.

When the last, bloody rays of the sun had receded from the horizon, the cold evening wind was the only sound that still echoed through the empty battlefield, blowing the what remained of the ashes into her face. Charred remains of forest and scorched, blackened earth blended and blurred, the landscape before her shifting with every blink. Her abused eyes ached, but she could not rest them—not yet, not until she made it back to the clan's temporary headquarters deep in the mountain range.

Familiar warmth tainted her cheek as yet another trickle of blood leaked from her eyes. Madara gritted her teeth, forcing her stiff, uncooperative fingers to once again clutch the hilt of her blade. Izuna was out on his own mission, and the other Uchiha would not come looking for her. Not that she would ask them to; she would rip out her own eyes before she ever begged for their aid. She swiped a ragged sleeve over her eyes, wiping away any trace of the bloody streaks, erasing her last external sign of weakness before starting on her way.

By the time she had staggered before the entryway of the Uchiha encampment, even her sharingan-enhanced vision was losing its edge; shadows and outlines smeared like blots of ink. Her limbs trembled with every step she took; stars seemed to fly before her vision. However, she only bit her lip, forcing her aching spine to straighten a little more before sweeping through the entryway—she would stride through the encampment with her shoulders set and her head held high, for Uchiha Madara had no weaknesses. She couldn't afford to.

Even though she had arrived long past midnight, there were still quite a few of her clansmen hurrying about the encampment, making preparations for the trials of the next sunrise. Most averted their eyes when she passed by, but she could feel their dark, heavy stares boring into her back once her head was turned. Beneath the shelter of her sleeves, her ragged nails dug deep into her palms, drawing blood.

Madara made her way down the rows of tents until she had nearly reached the very limits of the campsite, where the solitary canvas of her tent stood stark and bare against the shadows of the surrounding forest. When the clan had set up its headquarters, she had deliberately waited until every last tent beside her own had been staked before pitching her own tent where she did—not even Izuna had been able to change her mind.

She collapsed onto her bedroll as soon as her tent flap fell closed, not bothering to remove her sandals or even the shoulder belt of weapons across her back. Rather, she let the kunai dig into her spine and shoulder blades as she lay gasping for breath. The bloody red of her irises swirled and faded to black even as her abused eyes burned and stung; even blinking seemed to agitate them now.

Slowly, she let her eyelids slide shut, letting the whole world fade away before she drew her hands over her weary eyes. The cool leather of her gloves brought little relief for her exhaustion, but still she remained in that position, pressing her palms as tightly as she dared against her eyelids until a fresh wave of warmth welled forth and a sharp, metallic scent cut through the gloom. For a long time she lay there, listening to the cry of the wind as her eyes continued to bleed, leaving bloody tear tracks across her cheeks.

The frigid breeze rushed past the loose canvas around her tent, sweeping through the trees and into the woods beyond. She could hear the wind as it whistled through the crown of the forest, accompanied only by the occasional creak of a branch. It was cold, empty song, like an elegy for someone unloved or long forgotten. It was a song that filled her ears and drowned out all the rest of the world, even the clamors of her own mind.

...

 _She was knocking on the door to her father's office back in the compound, but it was not Tajima who opened the door. Ancient trees entangled with the walls of the building, gnarled roots creeping across the floor. People whispering, pointing, parting before her as she walks down a crowded street. Trees the length of dragons encircling her. A jolt of caution, of exhilaration—electrifying. She stands in a sea of fire under a powdered yellow sky and laughs, laughs until she falls to her knees, hearing someone far away calling her name, over and over—Madara, Madara, Madara._

"—Madara-san?"

Madara's eyes snapped open. Flakes of red crumbled from her lashes as she blinked rapidly, and she hastily swiped her sleeve across her face. Damn, she thought to herself, she knew she should not have fallen asleep and left her eyes untended as she did. She should have at least covered them with a wet cloth to soak up the blood but instead she had gone and let them bleed all over the place.

"Madara-san? Are you there?" the voice outside the tent spoke again. It was the voice of a young man—not her brother, but familiar nonetheless. She recognized that chakra signature.

"…I'm here, Hikaku-san." She snatching up a corner of her bedroll and swiped it furiously across her eyes, again and again, until her cheeks stung and the last trace of dried blood had been erased.

"May I come inside?" Hikaku's voice inquired; he was now less than an arm's length from the tent entrance.

In one motion, she tucked away the bedroll's bloody corner. "Yes," she answered, folding her hands in her lap. Upon her words, the tent flap rustled open, admitting a young Uchiha about Izuna's age. He sat down hesitantly before her, tucking his legs beneath him as if he were sitting down at a clan meeting rather than before a fellow shinobi only a few years his senior. In his hands, he held a small parcel.

"Madara-san," he began after a slight pause,"Izuna-sama asked me to check on you as soon I could after you returned from the battlefield. I had to help with sorting out the supplies we need for tomorrow, so I could not come as quickly as I had hoped." He dipped his head. "My apologies if I disturbed you."

"No need. You were not disturbing anything."

Uchiha Hikaku lifted his gaze once more, a few loose strands escaping from his high ponytail in the process and dangling before his face; he hurriedly brushed them away. "I brought you your part of the rations for today," he explained, placing the parcel he carried on the ground before her and withdrawing his hands to his sides. "You came back a lot later than the other people from the battlefield, so there might've not have been anything left otherwise."

Madara stared at the package for a moment. Unlike any other rations pack she had picked up before, this one was meticulously wrapped in cloth with a pair of chopsticks tucked neatly into the folds. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she picked up the package, turning it carefully in her hands as she inspected it. "Where did you get this?"

"As contracted, our employers are the ones who are supplying us for the entirety of this campaign," Hikaku answered, his fingers flexing minutely on his lap. "Izuna-sama was insistent that everyone only takes his share, but I think both of us knew that there were definitely a few people who would do just that, so we packed some up ahead of time. He…thought I should just bring it to you after you came back," he finished.

"I see." The slight pause in Hikaku's words did not escape her attention, nor did she miss the movement of his hands. She stared at Hikaku in silence for a moment, her frown deepening as the young Uchiha's shoulders seemed to tense uncomfortably. "…It's been quite some time since I've seen you, hasn't it?" she asked suddenly.

Hikaku bit his lip for just an instant before he spoke. "I've just been busy," he answered, "there's been a lot of preparatory work for this current campaign, and both the Council of Elders and Leader-sama have been unusually active for quite some time—"

"—You mean they've been active since Kenshin-san was injured, right? And speaking of which, that is also the exact amount of time in which I haven't seen you around." Madara's lips curved into an acerbic crescent. "You're afraid of me, aren't you? You didn't want to come here at first, but my brother either convinced you or ordered you to anyways, didn't he? If that's why you're here—" she gestured grandly towards the tent entrance—"feel free to leave right away. I do not and will not ever need any pity visitors."

"But that's not why I'm here!" Hikaku burst out, slamming his hands on his knees. "Well, not the whole reason anyways," he sighed, leaning back slightly, "I'll admit that I was afraid of you for a while after what happened with Kenshin-san; we all were. Ever since that incident, the leadership had been tearing itself apart. Half the Council of Elders led by Daiki-sama insist that you were the one responsible while Tajima-sama maintains that it was an unspecified accident and is calling for further investigations. No one is really sure what to do at this point.

"Most of the clan is looking towards Mitsuo-sama for a final word, but he spends most of his time outside council meetings in the medical wing with his son and has yet to release an official statement, so most of us...well, we didn't really know who to believe. And with all this doubt suddenly thrown in the air, many people in the clan who were already uneasy grew terribly afraid, and its affected many formerly neutral clansmen as well...I'm sorry," he finished, his jaw tightening as he looked down at his lap.

Madara closed her eyes and slowly rubbed her forehead. "There's nothing to be sorry for," she sighed at last, setting the parcel in her lap down by the side of her bedroll. "You all had good reason to be afraid."

"Regardless, I know I should have known better," Hikaku insisted, still not meeting her eyes, "I've known you for years by now—if it weren't for your family's assistance after both my parents passed away, I would not have made it past that winter, and Izuna-sama has always treated me like a brother. I know how highly he holds you in regard. But even so, after hearing all those things…I doubted anyways. I'm really sorry," he ventured, raising his head.

"…It's okay," Madara answered at last, "Fear is not always born from rationality, Hikaku-san, and it's human nature to follow the opinions of the majority, especially if those people are close to you. I know that you're on good terms with many people in the clan other than my brother and I."

"But even so—"

"—None of your suspicions were baseless ones anyways. The truth of what happened to Kenshin-san during the assassination mission in the Land of Water is next to impossible to confirm at this point, so you were limited to working with what information you had. And so when all your gathered inferences implicated me, you acted on those conclusions.

"It's good that you do not trust easily—no doubt that's one of the reasons why Izuna seeks out your opinion so much. The sharingan allows us to access information in greater amounts at a faster pace than anyone else living, but we can't just blindly believe whatever our eyes tell us. Our ability to critically analyze that information is just as important, maybe even more so, and that's something you do quite well already."

"But I was afraid of you as well," Hikaku protested, "I'm sure that had to have influenced my decision somehow."

Madara leaned back on her hands. "Of course, no decision will ever be perfect. Most of the time the information you have will be incomplete, and there will be numerous emotional factors to consider as well. You will just have to be as knowledgeable as you can, carefully analyze what you have, and the just decide."

"But what if I still have doubts?"

"There will always be room for doubt, but blindly doubting can be just as dangerous as blindly trusting. I don't really care if you still not fully trust me; I just hope that when you make your decision this time on whether or not to trust me, you don't doubt it again without good reason."

"That's what I mean to do," Hikaku answered. He took a deep breath and clenched his fingers briefly, a steely glint flashing through his eyes. "I wanted to ask you something."

"And that was your true purpose for coming here all along, wasn't it?" Madara smirked. "Ask what you need to, and then leave. It's nearly midnight, and we'll both have to be up and moving by dawn."

Hikaku nodded once. "Before he left, when he was asking me to come see you, Izuna-sama told me everything that happened on the mission after asking me to come see you, and we've discussed the situation at length. He suspected that Hideo-san was behind Kenshin-san's injuries," he relayed, lowering his voice in the process. "Is that true?"

"The truth is anyone's guess at this moment." Madara waved dismissively with her free hand. "I don't know for certain whether or not Hideo was the one who actually hurt Kenshin-san."

"But then it really wasn't you, right?" Hikaku pressed, leaning forward from where he was seated. "That's what I need to know, that it never was you who set the traps! I should've known, I've seen you on the battlefield and on missions before. This kind of roundabout method isn't how you do things; you wouldn't invite your target on the same mission as you and then set some huge, elaborate trap web that didn't even do its job. If you had really wanted to kill Kenshin-san, you could have done so on any number of missions or battles and no one would have suspected it!"

Madara laughed quietly. "I'll take that as a compliment," she chortled, resting her hands in her lap. "Anyways, it seems to me that you've already made your decision, although I admit it was much faster than I expected," she remarked, "and if it's just a verbal confirmation you want, I can tell you for sure that I was not the one who injured Kenshin-san."

"...I want to trust you," Hikaku admitted, "To be honest, by the time Izuna got me to come here, I was already fairly certain of what my choice would be; I figured that you were not responsible for this whole ordeal around Kenshin-san. I most likely owe my life to your family. If at all possible, I don't want to think badly of any of you, but I came here because I wanted to hear it from you, what you had to say about it all, I mean. And to apologize," he added in a quieter tone.

"Your apology wasn't really necessary." Madara shrugged, massaging the area around her eyes with her fingertips. "Like I said, you could have only acted on what information is available to you."

"But Madara-san," Hikaku countered, "since it wasn't you or Izuna-sama who injured Kenshin-san, then it could have only been Hideo. It's him, isn't it? That's why the clan leadership is up in riots about it all, and why Elder Daiki and his allies are so desperate to try and place the blame on you. That bastard!" he exclaimed suddenly, "That would explain so much! Mitsuo-sama is one of Leader-sama closest allies; they're trying to fracture their coalition! With the situation being the way it is, they're trying to make it seem that the only reason why Tajima-sama refuses to indict you is out of some, some sort of familial favoritism!"

"Well, Elder Daiki has had his eye on the leadership for quite some time," Madara confirmed, "Izuna and I have the same ideas as you, although I doubt that this was pre-planned with his son. Hideo's actions merely gave him an opportunity, and he took it."

"Why would they try to do this now, of all times?" Hikaku grimaced, "This is one of the most brutal campaigns we have ever participated in, and they know that. If they really succeeded in factionalizing the clan right now _,_ that's probably one of the worst things that could happen."

"And they know that. Neither Elder Daiki nor his co-conspirators are stupid—they know that this incident alone would not be enough to overthrow my father's authority. This is only the beginning," she predicted, "they will only strike in full force after the clan's situation is more stabilized, which may not even happen in my father's time. And if they dare to try and usurp my brother's leadership—" her eyes narrowed dangerously, a hint of red flashing deep in her irises—"I would not let them off easily," she vowed.

Slowly, Hikaku eased himself back into a comfortable position—he had leaned back instinctively upon sensing the sudden spike in Madara's chakra. "I just think it's so…" he waved his hands around as if physically grasping for words before reluctantly abandoning the effort. "I mean, we're all part of the same clan," he started at last, his gaze keen and serious, "we're descended from the same ancestors; there's shared blood in all our veins, and yet we still do these things to each other. Why do people hate each other so much? What will it take before we can be at peace?"

Madara chuckled. "If we knew the answer to those questions, we wouldn't be fighting all these pointless campaigns," she remarked, "in fact, we could probably end this laughing stock of an era for good. No more wars, no more senseless power squabbles, no more children dying before they could even grow taller than their own katanas, and it'd be a beautiful world, wouldn't it?"

For a long moment, Hikaku did not answer; he only stared into the distance, the light in his eyes mellowing and softening, until it was almost liquid. "Yeah," he breathed at last, "it would be. But I don't think that will ever happen," he said, huffing out an occluded laugh.

"…The only way for people to be at peace is for everyone to come to an understanding, to show each other their hearts," Madara said slowly. An image flashed through her mind—a tall man with long, dark hair and bright, bright eyes, his hands clasped as if in prayer—and she shook her head. "But that's impossible," she asserted with a dry laugh, "it's hard enough to be forthright with our own relatives, let alone with a clan we have a blood feud with. No one would ever be stupid enough to show their heart to their worst enemies."

"I certainly can't imagine any of the Senjus sending us a peace treaty," Hikaku quipped, "to be honest, they all seem the same to me nowadays. All I care about is how much effort I'll need to expend to kill them; none of them seem like actual people anymore." He stood up and gave her a deliberate bow. "Anyways, thank you for taking the time to talk with me, Madara-san," he said, meeting her eyes earnestly, "I'll be taking my leave."

Madara dipped her head once in response, cracking the barest sliver of a smile. "Just one more thing, Hikaku-san," she added just as he was about to walk out the tent, "don't tell my brother about the last part of our conversation, alright? It will only worry him."

Hikaku nodded. "Izuna-sama does seem to be that kind of person," he agreed, "I promise I won't tell." He turned to bow to her once more before finally lifting the canvas of the tent entrance and stepping outside. Madara sat there for a long time after he had gone, straining her ears, listening to the rhythmic crunch of gravel under Hikaku's sandals until the sound was indistinguishable from the howling wind outside. Only then did she let out a breath, lying gingerly back down on her futon.

In her mind, she could still recall her encounter with Senju Hashirama down to the very last detail—the banners of his hair streaming in the wind, the smile on his face like a warm hearth on a snowy night.

He had told her that she was worthy.

 _Hikaku was wrong_ , she thought, for Senju Hashirama was unlike any other Senju that she had previously fought. In fact, he was unlike _anyone_ she had ever fought. Upon realizing what she could do, those earthen brown eyes had held none of the usual resentment, but only the utmost sincerity and admiration—he had enjoyed their fight as much as she had. He was the only person who had ever acknowledged her, first and foremost, as a truly powerful, respectable shinobi.

Madara closed her eyes; they were starting to sting again. A mild but persistent pressure was building in the back of her eye sockets, and the nerves surrounding her eyes were also beginning to burn. She smiled thinly, blinking the first hints of crimson away from her vision—power such as hers did not come without cost. And yet, if such was the price she must pay to challenge _him_ again…it would be worth every drop of her bloody tears.

* * *

The moment Hashirama returned to the Senju encampment, he noticed that his clansmen were looking at him… _differently._ Awed whispers followed him wherever he went, and after ducking out of the storage tent with his supplies he could not help but eavesdrop as he walked back to his tent.

"Do you see him?" a voice whispered, "Him, right there, with the long black hair."

"Isn't that Butsuma-sama's eldest son? He's the one who just came back from Uzushio a little more than a week ago, isn't he?" A second voice interjected.

" _Yes_ , you idiot, who else? Makes you feel kinda sorry for the lad: he got home for just a few days and then got dragged right along with us on this campaign, but _damn_ if I'm not impressed _._ I saw him there on the battlefield today: he's the person who stopped the Uchiha demon."

The second voice spluttered. "What—I don't— _huh?!_ You've got to be shitting me, you're telling me he fought that monster _alone_ for _hours_ and came out of the fight looking like _that?!_ He doesn't even look that wounded!"

"It's no joke. You're not the only person having a hard time believing it. Hell, I saw it happen with my own two eyes and I'm still having trouble believing it! But there was no mistake, a good quarter of the battlefield was unapproachable because of all the area-wide ninjutsu those two were throwing around. You saw it too, you were there!"

"…That's still fucking insane. If you had come up to me a few days ago, telling me that there was someone among us who could go one-on-one against the Uchiha's resident psychopath and come out _alive_ , not to mention practically unscathed, I'd have thought you drank yourself to the bottom of the barrel!"

"I heard a while ago that Hashirama-sama was the first person in our clan to awaken the mokuton in quite a long time; as soon as the higher-ups found out about it they sent him away to train. Makes sense if you think about it, wouldn't want our only mokuton user to get killed off in battle before he knew what he was doing with it."

"My god, if just going to Uzushio for six years made him _that_ powerful, the clan should send all of us there! We could work out a shift schedule or something, and when we're all as powerful as that lad over there, who in the Five Nations can stop the Senju clan?"

"I highly doubt it; I think they only sent Hashirama-sama to Uzushio because of his kekkei genkai, and even then you'd still need a hell of a lot of talent and guts to duel the Demon of the Uchiha by yourself and get away with it…."

The discussion faded as Hashirama continued on his way. _Apparently I'm quite the popular discussion topic,_ he thought, his eyebrows climbing steadily as he passed by three more conversations of a similar vein.

"—Hashirama-sama over there saved my life. We went through more ambushes than I could count on the way here, and when I got stabbed in the side during one of them I thought I was a dead man. Then he came over and somehow managed to patch me up! I mean just look at it, I'm almost back in fighting shape by now. It was no wonder he could fight that monster head on…."

"—That man over there saved nearly half of us on the way here, especially during that landslide in Washi's Ravine. If it hadn't been for his mokuton, nearly all of us would have been buried alive. I wouldn't be surprised if even the Uchiha psychopath had a hard time against ninjutsu of that scale…."

"—Butsuma-sama must be so proud to have such a son: powerful, kind, and quite a good looking lad too. It's really too bad that rabid woman doesn't have enough humanity in her to appreciate him—oh hi Hashirama-sama!"

Hashirama ducked his head a little sheepishly as one of the girls in the last group waved at him exuberantly, and yet despite the embarrassing content, he had made sure to pay careful attention to every word of their chatter. As uncomfortable as it was, what better way did he have to learn about his clansmen's thoughts? Eavesdropping in this way was the quickest and most reliable way he could come to understand the views that his people held on various matters. And yet the more he heard, the more his budding frown deepened.

Demon. Monster. _Psychopath._

Although he acknowledges that the animosity between the Senju and Uchiha clans seemed to have only deepened since his departure, never before had he recalled hearing such venomous, fearful contempt embedded in his clansmen's words regarding any one person. _They're talking about_ her _…_ he thought, coming to a halt in the middle of the road.

His jaw slowly tightened into a stiff line; it was not so much the fear in his clansmen's tone about the Uchiha that bothered him, but rather their _disdain._ Even when his clansmen had faced powerful adversaries previously, they had never talked about any particular enemy with such disparagement in their voice, so that meant he was missing something—some vital piece of information that was key to understanding why the other Senju thought what they did of Uchiha Madara.

So what could that possibly be?

* * *

It was past midnight by the time Hashirama had made it to the supply area like he had originally intended. Carefully, he scrutinized a seemingly empty patch of trees to his left before letting his chakra flow slacken and undulate, dispelling the genjutsu with ease. A large, spacious-looking tent shimmered into view, and he stepped inside.

"Toka nee-chan," he said, feigning helplessness. "Is that really necessary every time?"

"Of course it is." A woman sporting a familiarly elaborate topknot steps out from behind one of the stacks of storage scrolls. She raises an eyebrow at him: "This is the tent where we keep most of our supplies, Hashirama. Of course I would defend it with all means available. What if there was an attack?"

"You just want to use me as your genjutsu testing experiment animal…," Hashirama mumbled under his breath, making sure that the woman could hear every word; she shoots him a look of mild exasperation, and he smiles inwardly.

Senju Toka was older than him by a couple of years, and she had helped to take care of him and his siblings after his mother had passed on. She was also one of the most talented genjutsu users the Senju clan had ever seen, thus why she was the only woman allowed to accompany the main Senju force to the Land of Lightning. Though she still was not permitted on the battlefield, the elders and his father allowed her to use her genjutsu to assist in protecting the encampment.

He forces down a grin, instead schooling his features into the most pathetic face he could imagine. "But if you use such high leveled genjutsu on every single passerby, how will anyone be able to use the supply tent?" he asked with wide, watery eyes.

"It certainly didn't stop you, didn't it?" Toka snaps with a hint of irritation.

Unable to maintain his façade any longer, Hashirama burst out laughing. "Your genjutsu has definitely improved, nee-chan," he offers, still chortling. "It took me longer than usual to recognize it."

"By which you mean it took you a few seconds instead of instantaneously," Toka laughed in return, before stepping forward and giving him a brief, but warm hug. "It's been a long time, you ridiculously talented brat," she said, stepping away and regarding him carefully.

"You've finally grown taller than me!" she exclaims in delight, "and you finally got rid of that ridiculous bowl cut of yours too! God, it was about damn time for that thing to go, do you know how ridiculous you looked as a sixteen-year-old? I still have those sketches of you and Tobirama somewhere in my house…."

"Aw, was it really that bad?" Hashirama whined, but his smile had widened to the point where it was now pinching his facial muscles. "It's okay now though, isn't it nee-chan?" He asked, gesturing behind him towards his evenly-cut, waist-length black hair.

Toka's expression softened further. "Yes, it certainly is," she agreed, eyeing his hair without much criticism. "I heard that you were back the moment you arrived, but there was so much shit to do that I couldn't find time to come see you. It was hard enough to convince the damn elders to let me come along on this campaign as it was, and I spent the rest of my time training and preparing. And of course there were all the ambushes on the road, so…."

"That's okay, it's not like I would have had much time to spend with guests," Hashirama replied good-naturedly, "Father called me back into active duty two days after I got back, and then there was the Uchiha scout that got the whole compound put on lockdown. Tobirama went into overdrive after that and dragged me with him—we were busy implementing new security measures until the moment we left."

"Tobirama…." At the sound of his brother's name, Toka's expression visibly dimmed for a moment. "I'm so glad you're back safely, Hashirama. It's been hard on all of us since you've been away." She reached up, giving him a solid pat on the shoulder. "Has he said anything to you since you came back?" she asked.

"…Not much," Hashirama replied, stiffening slightly. The scene from just a few nights ago flashed through his mind: his little brother, trembling in his arms, long-repressed sobs spilling forth as if someone had cut him open. "…He cried once, on the night I came home," he finally added, "but I haven't seen or heard anything since then."

Toka smiled fondly. "It took some getting used to after you'd left," she began, "but I think it was especially hard for Tobirama. For the first few weeks, I saw him wandering around the compound as if he were lost, going to all the places that you usually went to. He would stay in that garden you planted until it was late into the night. I even saw him come out at sunrise once when I was leaving my house for training.

"That boy is too used to being on guard, especially with his own emotions," she sighed, "so as terrible as this sounds, it's good to hear that he broke down once in front of you. You've always been good at helping him express himself, whether you know it or not, Hashirama."

Hashirama's throat tightened. Unlike him, Tobirama had never had much trouble concealing his emotions, even if he were feeling vulnerable or in pain. _Especially_ if he were feeling vulnerable or in pain. "How has he been? Since I've gone I mean," he managed to ask.

The corners of Toka's mouth dropped, and she let out another sigh. "Not that well, in my opinion," she answered at last, "after both Itama and Kawarama died, even Butsuma-sama cracked a little; he got completely drunk at the local bar for three nights straight, and some of our clansmen had to carry him home. But Tobirama, I've never seen him act out of the norm at all. It's like he'd killed his own emotions."

Hashirama's breathing seized; it was as if an icy fist had reached out and clenched itself around his heart. His breathing felt constricted, and the blood flow in his veins seemed to have slowed to just a trickle. "What do you mean by that?"

"I heard that he was the first to find Itama and Kawarama's bodies, with both of them in pieces at that, and yet when our clansmen caught up to him he didn't even _look_ upset." All traces of Toka's good humor had gone from her face; her expression now was positively grim. "Just went about his responsibilities as usual," she went on, "he didn't even shed a tear during the funeral, and I never saw him weep afterward either. Always business-like, never slacked on his work, even though there's more and more of it every day. It's like he was made of stone," she finished.

"…But how? How could he possibly keep so much of himself bottled up like this?" Hashirama murmured. _And more importantly, why didn't I notice?_ He asked himself, over and over again.

Toka shook her head helplessly. "I don't know how," she admitted quietly. "You were always the easier out of the two of you to approach, Hashirama, so I would usually go talk to both of you together. Sometimes he would even come seek me out to talk, but after you left he never sought me out once, or anyone, really."

"When I did go and seek him out, there wasn't much I could do," she continued. "He wouldn't open up about how he was truly feeling like he used to when you were here. I did notice that much of the clan's numerous affairs were piling up on him, because he looked like he hadn't slept in days, but he wasn't even allowed to discuss those responsibilities with me, someone who can never be an official shinobi. Because of _her,_ " she pronounces bitterly.

The arm Hashirama had held out to comfort Toka with freezes in midair, and he awkwardly retracts it to his side. "…'Her'?" he asked tentatively, swallowing a trace of unease.

Thankfully, Toka did not seem to notice his hesitation. In fact, she did not even seem to notice that him at all, instead staring far off at something he could not see. "If only that _demon_ had not done the things she did," she muttered to herself, as if she had forgotten his very presence. "If only she hadn't been as selfish and narrow-minded as she had, then it would have been different, and I could've…." She trailed off, and the silence crawled by. After what seemed like an eternity, Toka seemed to gather herself at last before turning back towards him.

"My apologies," she said stiffly. "I lost myself for a moment there."

Hashirama could only nod numbly; his prior hint of discomfort had given way to roiling unease. Once again, the hatred and the fear surrounding her _—Madara_ —were clearly audible, but he thought he had heard a little more than that in Toka's voice. An almost…disappointment, a grief for something that had never been.

"…What did she do to you, nee-chan?" he whispered.

"Oh, it's not only just _me,_ " Toka replied wryly, "it's what she's done to everyone who's _like_ me, or has ever been like me. But never mind that now," she said suddenly, "We have more important business to get to, like figuring out how to help your brother."

"…I do want to help Tobirama, nee-chan, but I also want to help you," he said, his heart jerking painfully in his chest. "I—I'm here for you if you ever want to talk more about it," he finishes softly, taking a step towards her before thinking the better of it; if there was one thing Toka hated, it was uninitiated physical contact, hugs included. "What do you think I can do for Tobirama?" he asked instead. "I know he's my little brother, and I know that he still cares for me very much, just as I do for him, but—" he spread his hands helplessly—"it's just been, such a long time…."

"…Just go talk to him," Toka answered after a long silence. "I know that six years is an eternity in shinobi terms, Hashirama," she said, the gentleness in her voice a covert but definitive presence. "All of us have changed in some way or another, and bridging those differences will take time. But no matter what, remember that _you_ are his big brother; you're the person he's looked up to for all his life, and you will never _stop_ being his brother just because the years have passed. If he won't open up to you, then he'll open up to no one.

"Now," she continued, "the recovery for both of you is going to be hard, because both of you are going to have to be honest. I know that you are both shinobi; the inclination to lie is built into your bones. Both of you will want to hide things and blunder your way through it, but in this instance you _cannot._ You'll have to push him to talk and he'll push back, and initially it may hurt more than you imagined it, but you'll have to endure that. The pain is what'll tell you where the wounds are, and if you don't even know where or how you're hurt, how can you begin to heal?"

 _Be honest…._ Hashirama's heart recoiled at the thought. "…Completely honest?" he asked.

"Well, the more things you're willing to trust each other with, the easier it'll be in the future," Toka replied.

"…I'm not really sure if I'm capable being completely honest with everything right now, nee-chan," he confessed. "I've been…thinking about some things lately, and I'm not sure if Tobirama would like the way where I'm going with them—"

"Just try, alright?" Toka interrupted, not unkindly, "you just have to try, that's all. I'm not saying you have to get everything right the first time. This isn't going to be like learning ninjutsu, you know. Who knows? This might even be a good experience for you, Hashirama," she remarked, her lips quirking up slightly, "it's about time you learned how non-geniuses get through life: by not getting things right the first time!"

Hashirama managed a chuckle. "Do you know where my brother is right now?" he asked.

Toka tapped her chin thoughtfully. "If all goes well, his mission should end sometime soon after midnight," she answered at last, "if you want, I'll let him know that you're waiting for him at your tent once he comes back. It's a habit of his to pick up supplies as soon as he's back from a mission."

"…Thank you so much, onee-sama," Hashirama breathed out, bowing steeply to Toka and holding his position. "You have no idea how much this means to me," he said seriously with his face still staring towards the ground.

Slowly, a tender smile steeped with nostalgia crept its way back onto Toka's face. "Oh Hashirama," she said, leaning down and patting him on the head, just the way she would when he was a child. "No matter how old you grow, you're still that sentimental little boy at heart. You don't have to thank me for anything, you silly child. Now straighten up! Your back will hurt if you stay bent over like that for too long!"

Hashirama managed a chuckle as he straightened up out of the bow. "Come now, nee-chan, I've still got some time before I'm as old as you," he joked mildly, earning himself a whack to the head.

"Watch your insolence," Toka smiled, patting his hair before retracting her fist and heading back towards the stacks of storage scrolls. "I'll go get your share of the supplies."

"…Actually, I already got those, nee-chan." Hashirama ventured, subtly turning his body towards the exit as he spoke.

"What? Didn't you come here to restock on supplies?" Toka demanded, spinning around.

"Uh…no?" Hashirama answered tentatively, waved a hand to dispell the illusory image of Toka that stood before him and turning around to face the real one. "That was the first thing I did as I came back to the encampment. You just didn't notice that I was here. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure Tobirama picked up that habit from me…."

"You! You absolute little—so you've already broken through my shielding technique once before?!" Toka spluttered, her dark eyes widening with real fury. "How long did it take you the first time?!"

"Err, exactly the same as the second time?"

" _Senju Hashirama!_ "

The man in question beamed. "I'll see you later nee-chan," he said brightly before making a prompt exit, feeling the weight of Toka's gruff affection all along the way. _Both of you will have to be honest,_ he recalledand his smile stiffens slightly on his face, but he manages to keep it steady until the flap of the storage tent falls completely shut.

Only then he let his joyous expression crumble.

The entire way back to his tent, he walked consumed by his own thoughts, and when he arrived at the entrance he could not bring himself to go inside. His resolve, so fresh on the battlefield just hours ago, now seemed so very far away.

How could he be honest with Tobirama when he had only just begun to be honest with himself?

It was one thing to confirm his dream with himself in the safety of his own mind, quite another to profess it to his last brother who was still struggling with a grief he could barely start to grapple. How could he tell Tobirama that he was considering making peace with the very people he considered to be the roots of his suffering?

Of course, he knew what the easy way out would be: he could drift along the tides of human sentiment, passively accept the agenda of his clan. He could say with absolute certainty that he was powerful; even if he were unfocused or unmotivated, he could hold his own in any battle, and no one would ever even _begin_ to fathom his deception, except, _except_ …. Hashirama smiled a little bitterly as he found the hole in his logic. But of course, with the addition of _her_ presence, that last point was no longer true, nor would it ever be again. He had forgotten that he was no longer alone at the top of the mountain.

"I hope you're ready to share a dose or two of honesty, Tobirama, because I don't think I really am." He cast a glance towards the heavens—it was nearly moonset. Dawn would soon be arriving. He reached for the entrance to his tent. "I may not be fully ready, but for you, I'll do it anyways. No more hiding."

"I owe you that much, at least."

* * *

Author's notes

(1) For those of you wondering why I never referred to Madara as a kunoichi, the word kunoichi, indicating a female ninja or a female practitioner of the ninja arts is a recently invented term that would not have existed back in the feudal ages when Madara was active.

(2) I actually had a horrible time deciding what color Hashirama's hair was. Before reading the wiki I would've sworn up and down that it was brown, but the Naruto Wiki page said that it was black, so I just rolled with it. Even though some part of me still insists it's brown….

I have no excuses for how late this update actually is...Sorry.


	5. Act I, Part II

Act I, Part II: A Time for Mercy

* * *

The dining tent seemed unusually spirited when Hashirama went to dinner that night. A sizable crowd had gathered around a single shinobi that he vaguely recognized from a scouting mission report the other day. Not wanting to draw unwanted attention to himself, he was about to sneak away and eat his dinner elsewhere, when he suddenly heard the man say, "we almost lost both Reiji-chan and Shu-chan today," the man was saying, leaning forward as he talked. "From what they described, it was a close call."

Hashirama felt his stomach plummet. Reiji and Shu were siblings, and not only were they two of the youngest shinobi in the Senju task force, they were also distantly related to him by his late mother. He had just made their acquaintance about two months ago when they were brought over from the Senju compound along with their other reinforcements. Food forgotten, he quietly skirted around the perimeter of the crowd and sat down in a discreet corner to listen.

"...ran into someone they shouldn't have," the man was saying, "the higher up are all abuzz about it, but apparently no one really knows what happened."

"Get to the point, Hachiro," someone in the crowd shouted, "we all know that you know what happened more or less, or you won't be sitting here talking about it!"

"Alright, alright, I'll get to it." The man named Hachiro waved his arms, gesturing for the crowd to quiet down. He continued in a mysterious voice, "the council ordered them to keep their mouths shut—they're afraid the panic will spread if word got around, you see. Apparently, they had an encounter with _Madara_."

Collective gasps rose from around the crowd. Tucked away in his corner, Hashirama clenched his fist involuntarily. "No way, everyone knows the only person who can go against _Madara_ and survive is Hashirama-sama. How could two _kids_ of all people have escaped her?" Upon hearing these words, Hashirama suppressed his chakra a little more.

"That's just the thing," Hachiro said, puffing out his chest. "They said that they went to check on our employer's supply cache in Hiyanari Village, right? My mission report was scheduled right after theirs, so I managed to listen in on a little bit—they said they didn't run into her until after they'd left the village already."

"Huh, I'd have thought they ran into her in the middle of the village, and she might've been afraid of witnesses or something. Otherwise how else could they have gotten away?"

"Yeah that's what I was thinking too—"

"So what in hell actually happened?"

"I was just getting to that," Hachiro said, raising his voice, "honestly, their report wasn't really clear at all. I mean—who can blame them? They're just kids and they just escaped alive somehow from our clan's worst enemy. But the thing is, this is their first big mission away from the clan, you know, so they've probably never even seen Madara or any other Uchiha in person before, since they haven't been on the battlefield like the rest of us here."

Murmurs arose in the crowd, but they quickly died away as Hachiro went on, "what was weird about the whole report too was that they just seemed really vague about the whole thing—brought up Uchiha Madara as an afterthought, for the love of the gods! When I overheard their report I—"

"Wait wait wait, how did the higher-ups know it was her if they were so vague?"

"They asked them to describe who they ran into, obviously." Hachiro shot the interrupter a glare, causing the man to slink back into the crowd, drawing scattered laughs. Despite his own worry, even Hashirama cracked a smile.

"And of course, the meeting exploded once the kids mentioned the woman's hair—messy, black, waist-length. Only one person around these parts has hair like that. Any Senju who's been on the battlefield around here can recognize it from a league away" Hachiro paused for a beat before he continued, "only part of her still left like a woman, I'll say."

"I'll give you that!" A man shouted from somewhere in the crowd, followed by a scattered but growing wave of agreement interspersed with disparaging comments as the crowd roared in approval. Hashirama's brows knit together at the display.

"Hey Hachi-san, you still haven't told us how they're doing," someone called out after the noise had died down.

"Oh right, that, of course." Hachiro coughed once into his fist. "No need to worry, everyone," he said loudly, "both Reiji-chan and Shu-chan appear to be completely unharmed. Elder Tadao sent them over to the medics for an inspection just in case…"

At this point, Hashirama stood up quietly and left the dining tent. His mind was whirling—he knew beyond doubt that Madara was an incredibly skilled sensor—there was simply no way that she had not detected both Reiji and Shu's presence. With her skill, it would have been a matter of seconds to tell that both children had been trained with the chakra the way only shinobi were, and right now the Senju were the only shinobi around in this part of the Land of Lighting. And yet, somehow, for some reason, the undeniable truth was that she had left the two children unharmed.

 _So…what had stayed her hand?_

He needed more information—that fact was certain. He needed to know exactly what had happened during this confrontation, exactly what had transpired between Uchiha Madara and his two young cousins that had made her act so… _mercifully_ , for there was no better word to describe it. The best way to do that, in his mind, was to find the two children and gently pry out what he needed right from the source.

And thanks to Hachiro's big mouth, he knew exactly where to find them.

* * *

Hashirama spotted the children just as they were emerging from the medical tent complex.

"Nii-san, you think they'll ever let us go on a mission again?" the smaller child asked as he tugged on his big brother's sleeve.

"No way, we'll be lucky if they don't send us home, Shu," the taller child replied. He gave a futile yank on his captured sleeve. "I've never seen Tadao-ojii-chan look so mad before."

"I didn't see that!"

"Probably because you were asleep, dummy."

"Not my fault, we were in that room for so long and the elders kept talking and talking and I was just so bored. Still am!" Shu stomped his feet on the ground.

"Hey, Reiji-chan, Shu-chan!" Hashirama bounded up to the children with a brilliant smile. "Mind if I talk to you two for a moment?"

Reiji's face collapsed into a scowl, squishy cheeks and all. "But Hashirama-nii-chan! We've been doing that since we got back!"

"Been talked to the entire day," Shu added with a frown of his own. "They wouldn't even let us go to our evening training session. We missed kunai throwing with Mahiro-sensei too."

"Well that's easy," Hashirama said with an easy grin, "I can take you two training right now if that's what you missed. You guys can have a mock sparring session or two with me, and then we can just sit and chat while we're cooling down. How does that sound?"

Reiji's eyes had grown wide and wondering. " _You're_ gonna spar with us in person?"

"Of course! Unless you two'd prefer sparring with my bushins—"

"No! I wanna spar with you!" Shu had long since released his brother's sleeve and was now waving his arms about in excitement. Suddenly, he planted his feet and pointed directly at Hashirama. "You're not allowed to go easy on us!" he shouted. "That's what the adults always do and it's dumb and nii-san and I don't like it."

Hashirama laughed. "If you're sure," he said, reaching out and ruffling Shu's hair. "Come with me then. I know a training field that's usually empty."

* * *

"Okay," Hashirama said, casting a concerned glance at the two children, "I think that's enough training for the day." Reiji was bent over his knees, panting for air, and Shu had simply collapsed to the ground, where he lay gasping for breath like a fish out of water. Both children were too winded to even speak. Hashirama had, of course, most definitely held back during the spar with his cousins, but the state of the children still made him smile somewhat sheepishly. _I may have pushed them a little too hard._

"How did you do that?" Reiji gasped out as soon as he could gather the air for it. He plopped himself down on the ground and look up at Hashirama with large, sparkling eyes. "You went through the entire move set for the Water Willow Katas like it was nothing, and I can't even get through more than half of it at a time."

Hashirama smiled. "The Water Willow Katas is the grounding for our the vast majority of our clan's Taijutsu, so of course it's not going to be that easy to learn. You're already very good if you can do half of it by your age, Reiji-chan."

"What about me Hashirama-nii-chan?" At this point, Shu had rolled himself into a sitting position and was looking at Hashirama with wide eyes. "I'm not as good as nii-san but I can still do more than half of what he can. Does that mean I'm good as well?"

"Yes, you're also very good, Shu-chan." Unable to resist, Hashirama reached out and ruffled the child's hair again, before gesturing towards Reiji to come towards him as well. "I still need to talk to you both, but would you both like a snack before we begin? We've all gotten quite a bit of exercise after all."

The two children shared a look. "Um, I don't see any food around here, Hashirama-nii-chan," Reiji began hesitantly, "we don't want you to have to run to the dining area just for us."

"Yeah, we know you're really busy," Shu agreed, nodding his little head seriously. His eyes took on a mischievous glint. "Could you maybe grow something for us instead?"

"Shu!" Reiji admonished, but he was turning his head towards Hashirama even as he spoke.

Hashirama laughed. "I won't mind at all," he said, sitting down cross-legged near the children. "I'm not a true mokuton master yet though, so no accounting for taste."

Both children nodded vigorously, and he felt his heart melt a little at the sight. "Here I go then," he said, folding his hands together and focusing on the small patch of earth before him. The ground shifted slightly before a tiny shoot of a plant sprouted forth, tender shoot and leaves growing and developing rapidly until a miniature apple tree, about the size of a bonsai, took shape. With a gentle nudge of his chakra, two tiny blossoms sprouted on the tree, quickly maturing into shiny red fruit before the children's eyes.

"Hmm, not the best environment around here for apples." Hashirama reaching forth and plucked the two fruits from the tiny tree. He held the fruit out to the children, who reached for them with wide eyes. Shu took a large bite out of his apple right away, but Reiji only held his up by the stem, inspecting the fruit from all angles as if not quite believing he was seeing it.

"I thought apples only grew in the northern end of the Land of Fire," the boy commented, still examining his fruit as if it held all the secrets in the world.

"Usually they do, but they can also grow here with a little help from me," Hashirama replied. He turned back towards Shu and smothered a laugh at the boy's face—Shu's cheeks were stuffed full of apple so that he bore a remarkable likeness to a chubby field mouse. "How does it taste, Shu-chan?" he laughed, "you look like you're enjoying yourself."

The boy mumbled something unintelligible through his mouthful, swallowed, and thumped on his chest a few times. "Good," he managed at last, "really good. You should eat yours too, nii-san." He poked Reiji in the side and gestured to his apple, giggling at the older boy's half-hearted glare.

"Siblings," Reiji muttered, before attacking his own apple with vigor.

Hashirama waited patiently until both children seemed to have finished chewing. "Are you both finished?" he asked, just to make sure, and upon receiving both their nods he continued, "great. So I know that you're probably sick of talking about what happened today at this point, but there are is some very important information that only you know. Don't worry—it's not an interrogation session. I'm just asking you two to tell me about everything that happened on this mission in as much detail as possible, okay?"

"But, Tadao-ojii-chan said not to talk about it with anyone else," Shu said hesitantly, casting a glance towards his brother as he spoke.

Reiji lowered his head for a moment, before he said, "I think it's okay to tell Hashirama-nii-chan. Tadao-ojii-chan said he didn't want us to tell people about it because then people will get scared. But I don't think he'll be scared. You won't be scared, right nii-chan?" He shot Hashirama a stern look.

Hashirama shook his head with a chuckle. "Not many things scare me anymore, and I promise I won't tell your grandfather."

Shu, however, still seemed unconvinced. "Are you sure you won't get in trouble?"

"Pretty sure," Hashirama replied, smiling. "And if it makes you feel more comfortable, I wasn't ordered by anyone to come and talk to you. All of this is purely for my knowledge alone."

Shu looked at Reiji and Reiji looked at Shu, and finally Shu gave a light shrug. "You want to tell him nii-san? You're better at talking than me anyways."

"Alright." Reiji nodded at his brother before turning back towards Hashirama. "You said everything from the start of our mission to the end?"

"That…might be a bit too long," Hashirama said. _Madara. He was here to find out about Madara._ "Why don't you just start from when you and your brother were coming back after your mission was already completed?" he suggested.

"You mean when Shu and I ran into Uchiha Madara."

Hashirama blinked twice, but he nodded. "Yes. As much as you can remember."

"…I'm just telling you, it really wasn't as exciting as everyone's making it look."

"That's fine."

"…Alright. If you really want," Reiji said. "After we got the list of stuff in the supply storage from the person in charge, Shu and I started heading back home. We took a side path out of the village, I think. We didn't notice anyone following us, but after a while down this path we ran into this lady walking all by herself. It was getting dark really fast, so Shu and I decided to go talk to her to see if we could help."

"…What was she doing?" Even after exhausting his imagination, Hashirama could not figure out what someone like Madara could have possibly been doing to make two kids think she needed help.

"Well…" Reiji squirmed slightly. "She wasn't really _doing_ anything, just…she was all alone in the middle of the woods, and the closest place with people was the village Shu and I just came from, and the sun was setting really fast….We were just worried!" he blurted out.

"She was really pretty too," Shu added in a small voice. "Father and Tadao-ojii-chan always told us never to let pretty girls walk alone to places when it was nighttime. We'd always walk our sister at home too, whenever she went out at night." Reiji nodded in agreement.

Hashirama blinked twice. He had heard of the boys' older sister from some of the other Senju. She was a quiet, timid young woman, mild-mannered and soft-stepped. He imagined her being led around the Senju compound for her entire life, perhaps not even knowing her own way home in the dark and felt a surge of pity at the thought. It was suddenly quite a challenge to maintain his neutral expression.

"I was worried for her because it was about to be night time really soon," Reiji continued, "so both of us went up to her and asked if she was lost and needed our help taking her somewhere. We were just trying to be nice, really."

He tried to picture a lost and frightened Madara wandering helplessly in a dark, shadowed forest and resisted the urge to physically shake the image out of his mind. That woman was far too proud for such petty fears—she would march right on through the darkness, her red, red eyes flashing in the gloom, or she would vanquish it like she would any opponent aside from him, with a stream of her brilliant flames. He tried replacing her image with that of either Toka's or Mito's and found himself equally affronted. Both of his friends, despite their appearances, had cores of steel—it seemed an insult to even think of them acting in such a way.

"How did she react?" he heard himself ask.

"She didn't really say anything. Just looked at us for a while, which was kind of weird. Oh yeah, and she raised an eyebrow at us, like this." Reiji did his best to imitate the expression he saw but only succeeded in making his eyebrows dance across his face. Shu burst out laughing at the sight, making his brother snap at him irritably. "It's just something like that, stop laughing Shu! Ugh, you're hopeless sometimes."

"What did she do after that?" Hashirama prompted.

"Well…" Reiji looked skyward for a moment and scratched at his bangs. "It was kind of weird."

Hashirama raised his eyebrows. "What did she do that was weird?"

"Wait, Nii-san, are you sure you're going to tell him—" he waved his arms in a circular motion—"you know, _that_ thing?"

At this, Reiji seemed to hesitate slightly, but then he replied, "we'll have to tell someone eventually. And I'd rather tell Hashirama-nii-chan than tell someone else and have them yell at me." She puckered his mouth upon hearing his brother's answer, but he did not say anything more.

Reiji turned back to Hashirama. "We told her how old we were after she asked us, and then she just got really quiet for a long time. And then she just looked at us and said she didn't need any help and told us to go home, but at the same time I think it wasn't just that. I mean, it was like, something _else_ happened while she was talking to us. I think Shu felt it too, but I just suddenly had this really strong feeling that I should go home, or at least back to here."

"…I felt it too." Shu fingers twisted in the hem of his shirt when he spoke. "It was almost like there was a voice telling us me to go home, in my head I mean. I've never felt anything like it. We didn't tell the Elders any of this during our report though—they already looked really mad after we mentioned what she looked like, Madara, I mean. We didn't know that was what she looked like when we met her."

Hashirama frowned. "…You were probably not warned about Madara because no one expected you to run into her this deep into Senju-controlled territory," he said to the children, "the task you were assigned was thought to be one of the safest ones we had. I'm also going to ask Toka-onee-chan to come take a look at you, okay?"

"Toka-onee-chan?" Shu frowned in confusion. "She's really good at genjutsu, right?"

"Yes. From what you and your brother have told me, it sounds like you were compelled to go home by a high-level genjutsu, which is why I'm asking Toka-onee-chan to come check on you."

"But it didn't feel like any of the genjutsu that we've trained with before," Reiji protested. "Nothing about it hurt or felt mean."

"There are many kinds of genjutsu," Hashirama explained gently, "not all of them have to hurt or feel mean. I'm not bad at detecting and breaking genjutsus, but Toka-onee-chan knows more about creating them and using them. We'll just give the both of you a checkup to make sure that nothing's impacted you adversely."

Upon the brothers' confused look, he added, "'adversely' means 'badly.'"

"Oh," Reiji nodded in comprehension.

"Are you…mad that we didn't tell the council people this, Hashirama-nii-chan?" Shu asked tentatively.

Hashirama shook his head. "No, I'm just glad you're both alright. In fact, I think it'd be good if you don't go around telling everyone exactly what happened during your run-in with Madara. We don't know why she acted the way she did yet, and if our other clansmen run into her with your story in mind, they could get seriously hurt. I'll give the council a version of your story, and that should prevent them from coming to talk to you again. If anyone else comes to talk to you today, tell them to come find me, okay?"

Both children nodded solemnly. However, just when Hashirama was about to stand, Shu reached forward and tugged on Hashirama's sleeve. "…She could have killed us, couldn't she?" he asked once Hashirama met his eyes.

There was no point in lying. "Yes. She could have."

This time it was Reiji who spoke. "So why didn't she?"

"Well," Hashirama said softly, "that's the answer we'd all like to know."

* * *

Tobirama rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. "So you're telling me, that these two kids went up and talked to Uchiha Madara herself, insinuated that she wasn't fit enough to conduct her business by herself, and got off with only a temporary suggestive genjutsu that sent them back to the Senju compound?"

"It may seem unbelievable to you, but it seems like that's really what happened," Hashirama said, skimming through another one of the reports on his table. "Reiji-chan and Shu-chan have been inspected by both our medical team, Toka-onee-chan, and myself. Their chakra systems were functioning completely normally, and there's no sign of seals on them anywhere, active or non-active. There were nearly undetectable traces of disturbance around a day old embedded in their chakra network near the brain, which matches my original guess of a more mild-mannered genjutsu such as one that implants suggestions."

"I thought you said you couldn't tell for sure," Tobirama said, frowning.

"She hid her tracks well, I admit," Hashirama said. "What disturbances Toka and I could find was minuscule so that we can't say precisely what genjutsu was cast, but the timing, location, and degree of power remaining in those traces all seem to support a high leveled suggestion implanting genjutsu."

"But this time it doesn't make any sense. I can see no logical motivation behind her actions," Tobirama said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Hashirama looked up sharply from his paperwork. " _This time?"_

"Something very similar happened nearly a year ago, when we first found out for sure about her existence." Tobirama was now pacing back and forth across the floor of Hashirama's tent. "We had just lost a number of teams in a matter of months, not enough to immobilize us but definitely concerning. The pattern was random, but for a long time we suspected something more was up. Unfortunately, we didn't even know who or what was responsible for our losses until we sent out a team of three on a relatively straightforward retrieval mission—only one of them came back alive."

"Who was it?" Hashirama leaned forward on his table, paperwork forgotten. "Did he give an account of what happened?"

"I think his name was Haruhiko if I recall correctly. He did give an account, but the details are quite sparse."

"…I see. So what happened?"

Tobirama stopped in his pacing. His gaze was solemn when he turned and met Hashirama's eyes. "Even now, we're still not really sure. Haruhiko came back as the only surviving member of his team. The two other shinobi who accompanied him had been more experienced, and we had meant for the mission to act as a sort of training session for him. What we do know is that he wandered back to the compound by himself in a sort of daze, which he didn't quite snap out of until the next day. We asked him to give an account of what happened, but…."

His brother took a moment to sigh. "It was a very strange report," he continued, "he said that just when they had nearly reached the outskirts of their target city, a person stepped out of the woods and blocked their path. She was wearing the Uchiha's standard high collar-robes which hid half her face, and he didn't realize she wasn't a man until she spoke."

Hashirama frowned. "She spoke to them?"

"Only to Haruhiko. Met his eyes before he could look away and told him to leave. He turned and left immediately before he could even think. We inspected him immediately upon his return and found that he still had lingering effects from a powerful suggestion genjutsu—the kind used to give emergency commands on the battlefield in the old days. Very few are capable of casting one that lasts more than an hour, and the boy didn't recover completely until the next day."

"…Was he ordered to return to the Senju compound?"

"No. We believe that he was only ordered to leave the immediate vicinity and not to return. He reported that he tried to go back to the place where the encounter happened several times throughout the day, but some odd force in his mind always prevented him from doing so. He'd wandered around for more than half a day until he finally willed himself to return. His teammates never came back."

"So that was how you found out about Madara." Hashirama looked down at his table, thinking for a moment. "You thought she had a motivation for this?"

"She must have. We'd known that someone or something like her existed for a while, but we had no information to act upon. That she deliberately chose to let someone live even after they'd seen her and knew of her allegiance—it's a threat. She was intimidating us. It's unfortunate that we can't go back and verify the details though, since the boy died so quickly afterward."

"The ' _boy_?'" Hashirama looked up. "You said he was a boy?"

"…Yes, he was around seven years old when this happened, but he died just a few weeks afterward in a skirmish with the Hagoromo. The kid was always distracted after that mission—survivor's guilt. He couldn't get over the fact that he alone lived and the other two didn't." Tobirama gave a strange look. "…You know how things work around here, Anija."

"Yes, I know." Hashirama shook his head. "But that's not what I was talking about. Reiji and Shu—they're both no more than eight years old, just like Haruhiko once was, and they're the only three people who've ever been spared."

"You think there's a correlation?" Tobirama's gaze sharpened. "But what could have possibly motivated her this time? We already know of her existence—there's nothing she could've gained from letting them go. I would've said some sort of genjutsu or mind-control, but since both you and Toka-onee-san are insistent—"

"It's not that," Hashirama interrupted quickly. In his mind, a wild, outlandish possibility was beginning to form, a prospect that he not yet dared to voice. "Tobirama, have there been any other incidents similar to these ones? Has she ever spared anyone else?"

"…I don't believe so. Those kids are the only three, at least from our clan, I think."

"What about elsewhere?"

"That I'm not very sure. From our intelligence network, it seems like she's mostly been deployed against us, which makes sense considering we're the Uchiha's most notorious enemy. But it does seem like she's appeared in campaigns against the Hagoromo and a large-scale campaign against the Chinoike clan last year. I don't have details on what happened during those campaigns though."

"Ahh, that's okay," Hashirama said, smiling to hide his disappointment. "Don't worry about it then."

Tobirama gave him a searching look. "…You're not getting any more of those ideas of yours, aren't you, Anija? We've already had this talk that night."

Hashirama shook his head gently. "That was because I talked with Onee-chan, and she said that we should at least know what the other is thinking, if only because we're siblings. I haven't changed that quickly since, Tobirama."

"Those ideas of yours are dangerous, Anjia," Tobirama said quietly, his voice hard. "What will become of you if you go into every battlefield thinking of the enemy as your friend? It'll be the death of you."

"I'm not that naïve, Tobi." Hashirama chuckled lightly. "I see potential, that is all. And with what happened today…." The corners of his mouth lifted unmistakably into a smile. _It gives me hope, that's all._

"…At least you only spoke with me instead of with Father," Tobirama sighed. "Just…don't make any assumptions, alright? The world doesn't work the way you want it to—whatever motivations Uchiha Madara is acting with, they're most likely _not_ beneficial to us in any way. Besides, it's not like we can ask her what she's thinking."

Hashirama froze, but he recovered quickly before his brother could notice. "Maybe," he said cheerfully as Tobirama was leaving. By the time his brother bid him good night, he had already made his decision.

There was nothing— _nothing—_ stopping him from asking. As long as he was vigilant, and provided she was willing to tolerate his questions, he could have his answers as soon as the next time he saw her. And for just a moment, he even allowed himself to hope. If his speculations were true—if what he ventured about her motives was true, then…

Hashirama chuckled and leaned back on his seat cushion.

 _Maybe I'm not as alone as I thought._

* * *

 _You know you've only delayed the inevitable._

Madara squeezed her eyes shut and let out a breath, yet the voice in her head lingered. Even now, more than three days since she had sent those two children running off into the oncoming night, she could still recall every line of their faces with accuracy. And even now, she was still plagued by the same doubt that she had experienced nearly a year ago, when she had sent that one trembling Senju child far away from the site of his teammates' deaths.

 _Did I really make the right choice, in letting him go? In letting_ them _go?_

She clenched her fist. After that unfortunate encounter, she had never seen that child ever again. For all she knew, he may have died the very next week, in a different encounter, perhaps the victim of one of her own clansmen. And even if they managed to grow like three of her brothers had not, they would only do so by spilling the blood of her own kin, with cold, weary eyes long wrung dry of tears. Who even knows, what would happen to the two children she had met today?

And yet, despite all odds, the slimmest part of her was still clinging to hope—that maybe, there was just the slimmest chance that those children would survive, live on to some time that was better than these. If the clan ever uncovered what she had done, what would they say?

 _Still not cold enough, still not callous enough. Weak._

The edges of her lips morphed into a humorless smile.

* * *

"Nee-san, are you alright?" Izuna cast her a concerned glance when she walked into the supply tent that night. "You've been looking grim ever since you gave your mission report today."

Madara shook her head lightly. Although she had taken care not to mention anything about the two children during her report, their faces still lingered in the back of her mind. "It's nothing for you to worry about," she said quietly.

Izuna narrowed his eyes. "What is it? Did Father say something to you during the debriefing? Or was it the elders?"

"It's none of those Izuna." Madara smiled wanly and patted her brother on the head. She did not want to burden her brother with the weight of her own decisions.

"Then what is it? You seem bothered."

"Ahh, it was just…a mission tomorrow," she said, hiding a wince. It was not exactly a lie—Tajima had truly pulled her aside after she gave her report of her reconnaissance mission to each of the enemy's suspected supply caches. "Father wants me to represent the clan tomorrow at the strategy meeting tomorrow with our employer."

Her brother's eyes lit up. "Really? That's great, nee-san! Not even I've met up with that Prince Noburu by myself before—not that it's super difficult, mind you. So what's the matter? Are you nervous or something?"

"…I suppose."

Izuna beamed. "You don't have anything to worry about. You've been with Father and me on so many meetings and negotiations—I'm sure you already know all the mannerisms and stuff. Just make sure you arrive early and grab the seat that's as far as possible from the head of the table or wherever the princeling is sitting. We don't want to seem too attached after all, and those noblemen always think the world revolves around them."

He turned a blinding grin upon Madara. "I'm just so glad that Father's finally letting you get involved more directly. You're so already so good with all the random clan business I throw at you whenever it's too much for me to handle, I'm sure you'll be great."

"If all goes well there should be no problems…although something about this does throw me off a little, almost like its too easy."

Izuna laughed. "Of course it seems easy to you. It's just a meeting after all—how bad can it be? It's not like you haven't been to those before, and you even handled all my paperwork for that last one when my mission ran late. Honestly, at this point you could probably already take my job and do it better than I can!" Izuna laughed heartily at the last comment.

Madara mustered a small smile. "Don't be silly," she said, cuffing her brother on the head. "You're the future clan head. My job is only to clear the way for you."

"Oh your job is much more than that," Izuna said, grinning. "You have to keep me in line all day, make sure I don't terrorize the old cronies too much."

"Like I can stop you."

"Mind you, it does seem to be working. I don't think Father's ever spent any time alone with me again ever since the whole deal with Hideo. Speaking of which, that bastard—I ran into him today when I was coming back from my own mission. He took one look at me and turned and ran. Che, at least he knows what's good for him. I can't see his wretched face without wanting to smash it in for what he did to Kenshin-san."

Madara's expression darkened as well. "He got off too easily," she said, her voice low and dangerous.

"If it wasn't for him, Kenshin-san should be here with us right now instead of lying in a coma back in the compound. Pity, we could have used him," Izuna said, pausing in his work and leaning back against a supply crate. "He was one of the best at sealing in the clan—would've been a great help for this week's feint maneuvers along the eastern front."

"Those maneuvers…I think the meeting tomorrow has something to do with them," Madara said, frowning slightly, "Prince Noburu seems to be planning something supplementary to our efforts in the east. He seems to want to end this war with his brother before they can retreat fully into their mountain strongholds."

"Not surprised," Izuna smirked. "Winter's coming on soon and all. He's getting impatient isn't he? Wants the daimyo's hat on his head before the first snow falls. Completely unrealistic, if you ask me—both the enemy samurai and the Senju are concentrated around the sanctuary cities in the mountains. They're all too ready for a winter-long siege. Like I said, those nobles are always so full of themselves."

"Well, this Noburu might still have a chance if he has a plan to destroy their supplies," Madara said gently.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. Even if there is such a plan, Noburu himself definitely didn't come up with it. He and those samurai of his are all so uptight, him with all his courtly nobleness and them with their flashy code of honor. Not like us—we just do what needs to be done and that's that."

"….That's because we have to, Izuna," Madara said softly, "killing is the same business no matter how you package it. Some who engage in it—" her eyes flashed with red with mangekyo—"may be more despicable than others, but other than that we're all the same, nobility or honor code or not."

"But _we_ are not like them, nee-san." Izuna shook his head. "The nobles are predisposed not to care about their own, and the samurai's code _requires_ them to place their loyalty to their employer above everything else, even their own families, but _we_ 're not like that. You, me, Hikaku-chan, Kenshin-san—none of us are like that, and I know there are others in the clan who are like us, even though they're not as vocal about it. We care about each other, nee-san, and that's something those people can't even fathom about."

"…You know they say that compassion is weakness, Izuna."

Her brother waved an arm dismissively. "I know that, but I'm talking about something entirely different. I care about you, and about Hikaku-chan, Kenshin-san. We share the same blood and we bear the same name, and that means something to all our kin who are true to the Uchiha clan. _That_ is what I have compassion for, nee-san, don't you see?"

"…I suppose you're right," Madara allowed, but inwardly she bit her tongue. _Yes, compassion for our kin is what makes us strong. But what about compassion for the enemy?_

* * *

The hour-long meeting was nearing its end. Madara rested her chin on her propped arm and barely suppressed a yawn, ignoring the dubious and inhospitable looks she received from the generals and advisors seated around the table. As Izuna had advised, she had chosen a seat located a reasonable distance from the head of the table, though it had not really mattered, considering that Prince Noburu had not even bothered to show up at his own forces' strategy briefing.

"And now for the last and most important matter on our agenda today," the prince's chief advisor drawled on, "as everyone present knows, Noburu-sama's treacherous brother Naoki and his forces have been on the retreat into the fortified towns in the Land of Lightning's northern mountain ranges. For some time now, our forces have been engaged in provocative attacks, hoping to delay this withdrawal which may result in a siege or even stalemate, hence the plan you all have before you on the table proposed by both General Yuhei and myself, with the approval and blessing of Noburu-sama himself, of course."

The man sitting on the chair to the immediate left of the head of the table shifted in his seat, his armor creaking as he did so. "Kubo-san and I came up with the idea of sending a small force of elite fighters to strike at the enemy's individual supply caches," he said in a low voice. "Our information network has already pinpointed the major towns and villages playing host to these supply sites. The goal of the plan is to target and destroy thoroughly as many of these supply sites as possible to delay or even prevent the enemy's retreat into their mountain strongholds, so speed is of the essence, which is why a small strike force is needed. Generals, I cannot emphasize enough the need for experienced and well-trained warriors, so please be sure to choose the most elite of the men in your ranks. Yes, Kubo-san?"

"Yuhei-san is absolutely correct about the need to select our warriors carefully," the chief advisor said silkily. "No matter your origins, selection for this mission is indubitably a mark of honor, and as such I implore all our representatives present to convey to their respective leaders our need for their most illustrious and distinguished men." At this, his eyes drifted pointedly towards Madara.

As if prompted, one man towards the end of the table raised his hand immediately after Kubo spoke. "With all due respect, Yuhei-san, Kubo-san, I understand that this task is not to be completed by our men alone, that there are…other forces involved as well," he said, deliberately not looking in Madara's direction. "How will their forces be selected, and how will we know that the people they choose are fit for the task we require?"

"That's an excellent question, Yota-san," Kubo said, a smile slithering onto his face. "Due to our need for speed, the plan only calls for one or two of the most elite shinobi to supplement our samurai on this mission. As I understood it, Tajima-san was supposed to have a list of recommendations that he would present to us today at the meeting so that we could later evaluate them individually. If you would please, Madara-san." His last words oozed like poisoned honey.

Madara's blood froze. When her father had pulled her aside after her report yesterday, nowhere had he mentioned any kind of a list, and from the malicious smile the advisor wore it was plain that he was expecting _some_ unbecoming from her. She scanned the room in one stroke—fortunately, it seemed that the rest of the room was merely expectant, aside from the advisor and a select few others. Her eyes narrowed—like _hell_ she would let them have their satisfaction.

In a tone just barely on the side of polite, she said, "I'm afraid there must have been a miscommunication."

"Oh?" Kubo clasped his hands together before him as if he were watching a particularly interesting animal trick. "And what might that be?" Madara resisted the urge to grimace—although the motions were similar, the advisor's gleeful, gloating gesture was nothing like _that man_ when he clasped his hands together on the battlefield, as if in prayer.

"I believe you said that only one or two of the most elite shinobi were needed to supplement the samurai on this mission, correct? And then you said that my father would have a list of recommendations to be presented today at this meeting to be evaluated individually. Your exact words," she said calmly.

Kubo's brows furrowed slightly, but he still continued, "well then, bring out the list as we had previously agreed, or are the Uchiha so rebellious that they deliberately disobey a direct missive descended from our prince?"

Quiet murmurs broke out in the room, but Madara met Kubo's narrowed eyes unflinchingly. "There is no list because there are no recommendations," she said, flashing a belligerent smile. "Our clan leader has already named me for this task, so those formalities are no longer necessary."

Any remaining trace of glee fell from Kubo's face " _You?"_ he nearly shrilled, before he seemed to recover his composure. "With all due respect, that seems…quite adventurous of your clan," he said instead.

Another man seated a few chairs away from Madara spoke up. "How can we know that the shinobi's standards of evaluation meet that of the samurai? After all, without a code, they are not really—" he grimaced— " _organized_ the same way that we are."

More whispers rose from around the room, and Madara raised her voice slightly as she spoke. "Even the best standards can only be tested in battle," she said calmly, her eyes sweeping over each and every person seated around the room. "A true warrior is born from fire and steel, not from the picking eyes of men. Was that not how all of you discovered the best of the best of your samurai? It's no different for us shinobi."

The advisor's eyes widened, and he seemed about to speak, but an old yet still imposing voice rose in his place. "Madara-san, you are quite well spoken, but I'm sure your clan knows that the battlefield is no place for lone pride. Unless you truly have the power to back up your bold words, there is no shame in renegotiating your role to someone more suited."

Madara narrowed her eyes as she turned towards the source of the voice. "General Minamoto," she acknowledged, dipping her head. When that general had spoken, the rest of the room had quieted as well. "Your concerned are well appreciated, but my clan and I are well aware of the dangers."

"I advise you listen to Minamoto-san," Kubo cut in once more, his voice once more taking on that sickeningly sweet edge. "There was a reason why Yuhei-san and I advised Noburu-sama to add shinobi to our ranks, especially for a mission of this caliber." He lowered his voice almost conspiratorially. "Our recent intelligence says that Senju's secret weapon has been relocated from the southern front of the war where we originally expected him to be to the northern mountain ranges. He's supposed to be incredibly dangerous—creating forests with a clap of his hands, imagine that. Your father's reports never quite mentioned how you've been holding him back, but I'm sure you know of him, don't you? It'd be such a shame if you had to run into him in the middle of this mission."

Snippets of agreement arose in the room at the end of Kubo's speech. "Against that man alone? Seems like a waste of life to me…."

"Never seen him in action myself—quite dangerous—"

"Girl like her has plenty to live for—a good husband, good family, it'd be a shame..."

Madara let the murmurings continue for a moment. That one of these noblemen had brought up Hashirama's presence in hopes of discouraging her involvement—it took all she had not to laugh out loud at their ignorance. "Senju Hashirama does leave quite the impression," she said, the corners of her mouth curling into a victorious smirk. _My turn to be gleeful._

"After all, he _is_ the only one of all my opponents I have yet to get tired of fighting."

Utter silence. Then the room was swallowed by one, all-encompassing outburst.

"No way, all this time, a _woman_ held off the new Senju prodigy _all by herself_?"

"This is no time for empty boasts—"

"But why else would the Uchiha leader have sent her?"

"Ha! No wonder the old crow never wanted to give us details. How embarrassing it must be for him to know that he needs his own daughter to fight his battles for him!"

"I'd rather swallow my own blade before sending any woman in my clan to war."

"Tch. And this is why the shinobi will never reach the class of the samurai. Look how low they sink—they don't have a scrap of honor or pride to speak of—"

" _Silence!_ " General Minamoto's command cut through the din, and the room quieted immediately. He turned towards Madara. "…Is it really as you say?"

"It'd be pointless to lie about such things." She crossed her arms, looking the old general's straight in the eyes. Minamoto held her gaze for a few more moments, his eyes boring into hers, but Madara's stare was unwavering. At last, it was the general who looked away first.

"Very well," he said, "then we shall trust in your words on one condition. Do you swear by the Gods that all you have said is true, and you will protect and aid the samurai on this mission alongside you to the utmost of your abilities?"

Madara laughed. "My gods have never been of much help to me," she said, "but if it comforts you all, for the duration of this mission, I will pledge to your selected soldiers as much loyalty as I pledge to my clan."

At this, a sliver of light seemed to flash through the old general's eyes. He nodded faintly. "Then as Noburu-sama's chief commander of arms, I declare this meeting adjourned. May you all do your best to prepare for our task in three days' time, and may the Gods watch over you all."

* * *

Madara's brows slammed together as one of the samurai's chakra signatures she was tracking abruptly flickered and died. In a flash, she was on the nearest roof, her senses guiding her as she raced towards the hotbed of conflicting chakra signatures, some of which were already beginning to flicker. _They should not have been engaged this quickly_.

Their fifth raid of the mission had begun like any previous one, with the samurai strike force she was shadowing sending in a small scouting party to locate the targeted supply cache in the town or village before launching the main attack. By combining the above tactic with unorthodox times of attack, they had already managed to destroy four of the seven known supply caches with only minor casualties. This time, however, it seemed that the enemy had finally caught on to their strategy.

Madara dropped from the roof and kicked the nearest enemy samurai into the wall, running a sword through him for good measure. "Tetsu!" The samurai commander less than an arm's length away spun around at his name. "What's the situation?" she demanded.

"They've found us out, it seems," the man said through gritted teeth, "I should have known—there weren't any civilians all the way into town. I was just leading the unit through this alleyway when they set upon us. Everyone's scattered now, I think."

Madara swore under her breath. "We'll have to regroup _fast_ then head for the target as soon as possible, get out of here as soon as the target's destroyed, then—"

Suddenly, her senses flared up in warning as an enormous beacon of chakra approached rapidly from the east. Vast as the forest, bright as the sun—she could never mistake that chakra anywhere. "Never mind. Forget everything I just said—just get as many people as you can then leave. Get to it!"

"Wait, but why? What's going on?"

"Just go! I'm invoking Plan Nine. _He_ 's coming. Once I go to meet him this site's as good finished."

"But what about you, Madara-san?"

This time she swore out loud. "I'm the last person you should be worrying about," she snapped, "regroup if you can and finish this blasted mission. I'll catch up with you later. Go!"

At last the man turned and ran off, looking backward all the while. Madara spat a preordained signal-fire into the night sky before launching herself back on the rooftops, flaring her chakra as she ran. There was no doubt in her mind that Hashirama would follow her, and she had to get them both out of the town's immediate vicinity so their battle didn't impede her mission team's retreat. The lack of civilians meant that this ambush had in planning for quite some time, but it was all the better, for now she could fight without holding back.

A good distance away from the town in the middle of a terraced field, she stopped running and turned around. By the faint light of the crescent moon, she sensed more than saw his rapid approach. She took a deep breath even as her hands flew through the seals. "Katon: Gokka Mekkyaku!*"

Familiar heat washed over her like a wave. Already, she could hear the responding creak of wood and branches as her opponent responded to her enthusiastic greeting. Her entire world seems to sharpen as her sharingan spins to life—she can see him even as the very air writhes and bends from the intensity of her flames.

The corner of his mouth seemed to twitch and the forest surged once more—a torrent of her flames parried him. For the time, she was content to keep buying time with this long-distance exchange, but she knew she would have to move their battlefield closer to the town eventually if the mission objective was to be completed.

Madara frowned as she split another series of vines straight down the middle. Something about the battle seemed to feel…different. Ever since their first battle when Hashirama had discovered the extent of her sensing abilities, he no longer bothered to hide in his forest. Instead, he would stand in her plain sight, surrounded by the forest he commanded as his creations swarmed her from all directions. She squinted as she loped off the crown of another tree.

 _He's being much more aggressive than usual._

"What are you playing at, Hashirama?" she grumbled, subtly adjusting her position so that she was oriented in the direction of the town. Her eyes flicked upwards—judging by the location of the moon, more than enough time should have passed for even the slowest of the samurai to retreat. "Heh, well I guess it doesn't matter."

The ringed circlet of her Mangekyo blazed to life in her eyes. She blinked hard a few times to ease the now-familiar pain and then her entire world was tinted blue from her Susanoo. Hashirama's mokuton dragon was swirling to life before her, but she managed to hurl a well-aimed yasaka magatama into the distant supply cache before the dragon was trying to pin her down.

In an instant, she had Susanoo's sword drawn, the blade pointing directly at the head of the dragon where Hashirama was located. "Well? Aren't you going to say something?"

Even with a glowing blade leveled less than a spear's throw from his head, Hashirama still managed an easy if slightly sheepish smile. "Was I that obvious?" he asked. Intriguingly, she saw in him no visible signs of dismay at her destruction of the town's supply site.

Madara snorted. "Attacking twice as often as usual, with all your attacks aiming to immobilize but not kill immediately. Obviously you wanted to pause the battle for something lengthy and unreasonable."

Hashirama laughed, the remnants of her fire casting a warm glow on his face as he did so. "Come on now Madara, you know I enjoy our contests as much as you do, though I do wish they were under better circumstances."

"Get on with it," she snapped, her eyes narrowing dangerously, "you're always more entertaining when you're rid of distractions."

"Okay okay, I get it." Hashirama raised both his hands in a placating gesture, his smile fading. "Do you remember the two children you met a week ago? They stopped to talk to you, asked if you needed help."

"…Yes." There was no point in denying it.

"You're too good of a sensor to not have known they were trained shinobi, Madara. You know my clansmen are the only shinobi in these parts since your employer's brother hired us. Those two kids may as well have been wearing the Senju emblem on their backs."

"They could have been from elsewhere," she muttered, but her words seemed weak even to her own ears.

Hashirama shook his head. "Even though they could be, any other shinobi still would have killed them just to be safe or at least interrogated them. But you didn't." His eyes were bright, too bright—almost piercing, though not in a malicious way. Even though she was the one pointing the sword at his head, Madara suddenly found it difficult to meet his gaze. "You let them go. You sent them home, Madara. Why?"

"I don't have to explain myself to the likes of you, Senju," she snapped, edging Susanoo's blade even closer, but infuriatingly, the man only smiled.

"If I hadn't known better, I would have thought you were trying to intimidate us, but then I found out that Reiji and Shu weren't the only ones—there was another eight-year-old boy, nearly a year ago." A smile was dancing along the lines of his mouth. "You spared those children just because you could, didn't you, Madara? Because you cared—Gods above, and all this time I thought that only I..." He shook his head and laughed, like a lone traveler who had, after countless years of solitude, finally found a like-minded companion.

Madara's hands were balled into fists. She should just jam her sword into his chest and be done with it, she really should. Susanoo's blade hovered, trembling, above Hashirama's head, and yet this one time, she had trouble bringing it down. "That's enough, Hashirama," she said through gritted teeth.

Hashirama's laughter had now subsided into a warm, beaming smile. He was the happiest she had ever seen him. "Thank you," he said sincerely, his eyes shining. "You have no idea how much that meant to me, to the boys' family, even though they don't seem to see things the same way I do."

In direct contrast to Hashirama's joyous boom, Madara's laugh was harsh, even grating. "And they shouldn't. Sympathy for the enemy is compassion wasted. It's _weakness_."

"No, it's not," Hashirama said. His tone was kind but firm. "Sparing children does not—will _never_ make you soft or weak, or any less of shinobi, Madara. Actually, it's the kindest, most courageous thing I've seen anyone do in a long time, including myself." His dark eyes were clear and pristine, like the sky on a cloudless night.

"…It's naïve, that's what it is," Madara said at last, shaking her head. "Even this, this _talking_ between us. You're a Senju, I'm an Uchiha. You and I should have nothing to say to each other."

"Should," Hashirama said softly. "We _should_ have nothing to say to each other. But we do. The war in this land will come to an end soon—you feel it too, don't you? Winter is coming on fast, and we both know that neither your side nor mine can battle on through the mountain blizzards in the Land of Lightning. Not even the wealthiest daimyo would wage war then."

Madara grimaced and did not reply.

Slowly, the smile slipped from Hashirama's face, and he sighed. "Madara, there's a reason why the Senju neglected to take action against these raids until now. This mission that you're buying time for right now, all this destruction—" he swept a hand across the tattered mountainside that had formerly been orderly, terraced fields—"will be for nothing. Our employer is no longer reliant upon these supply hubs for the winter."

" _What?"_ the word slipped out of her mouth before she could stop herself. That the enemy was no longer reliant on the supply sites meant they had somehow found a way to procure more food even in the dead of winter. Her mind spun at the implications—if what Hashirama just said was true, then there was no way that the war could be won before the snows set in. It meant a definitive stalemate, perhaps even a siege into the next spring. She bit her lip.

"…There's been talk of an armistice among my employer's people. It's still tentative, but I think support for it is growing. Apparently, your clan's been giving the samurai quite a hard time in the south." Madara's eyes widened, and a hint of Hashirama's former smile resurfaced. "If things continue the way they are now, I expect that a request for a diplomatic meeting will be sent to your employer by the end of the month."

Madara stared at the man, who looked back at her with earnest eyes. With the mangekyo, every detail of his expression stood out to her, and yet she could not discern a single trace of dishonesty. Even with Susanoo's blade pointed at him this entire time, the man had not shown even a hint of discomfort. Slowly, she lowered the sword. "Why are you telling me all this?"

At her question, the man seemed to hesitate for the first time. "I've…been hoping for peace for a long time," he said at last. "I know that it will be temporary even if a truce is made, but even so, I'd still like to see it and learn from it. To make it last someday, so children no longer go to war."

Madara's eyes widened. She opened her mouth, but this time her voice seemed to fail her. _Ridiculous, naïve,_ she wanted to say, but the words refused to fall from her lips. It was several moments before she could speak. "Even if the Lightning Princes reach an agreement, that will not mean the end of conflict for the shinobi clans," she said quietly. "There will always be a reason for the Senju and Uchiha to fight."

"Perhaps for now, but there are also reasons not to. Powerful reasons, like the ones you gave yourself when you spared my young cousins that day." The last, glowing embers of her fires were reflected in Hashirama's dark eyes, and in that moment Madara could not look away.

"Even if no one else knows or wants to acknowledge it, I will remember what you did, until the day I can return your kindness."

* * *

Author's notes

*Katon: Gokka Mekkyaku - Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer Flame

Once again, I've clawed my way back from the dead. Reviews are greatly cherished. Also, if you like this story so far, be sure to go check out _No Humble Mortal Ever Matched These Eyes,_ by Toitsu, from which I drew my inspiration and motivation for this story. It's a short read, and I promise it's very worth your while.


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